New Orleans Pelicans head coach Alvin Gentry isn’t messing around when it comes to Jrue Holiday.
After missing just 14 games through the first four seasons of his career, all of which were spent with the Philadelphia 76ers, Holiday has missed 90 over the last two. Put simply, his time in New Orleans has not gone as planned, and Gentry is hoping his added precautionary measures will change that.
As Holiday tries to put distance between himself and his lower right leg issues, he’ll be held to a minutes cap at every turn.
First, we have the NBA’s preseason. Holiday won’t be playing much at all in those exhibitions, per John Reid of the Times Picayune:
Jrue Holiday will be under a 10-minute per game restriction in preseason, Alvin Gentry said tonight
— John Reid (@JohnReid64) September 25, 2015
Once the regular season rolls around, Holiday isn’t expected to play more than around 15 minutes, less than half his career average, according to Reid. On top of that, don’t expect to see the one-time All-Star appearing in any back-to-backs:
Alvin Gentry on Jrue Holiday: ''He won't be able to go back to backs at all for a while.
— John Reid (@JohnReid64) September 25, 2015
This only seems like a lot of red tape, because it is. But, as Gentry put it, according to Reid, this really isn’t anyone’s decision.
It’s necessary:
”It’s not my decision or anybody else’s,” Gentry said Thursday during the 3-point Fan Club of New Orleans meeting at the Chateau Golf and Country Club in Kenner. ”It’s a situation where, like I said, we are going to precede with caution. We’ll see how training camp goes and how he is and we’ll try to work our way through that.
”I think we have a plan in place with the medical people and they will be on top of that. We are going to follow protocol because he is a very important player for us.”
There’s no need to rush Holiday back in this situation. He’s under contract for another two years and, when healthy, has shown he can compete with the best at his position—which is good, because the point guard position is still stacked. If you don’t have a talented floor general, you’re up a certain brown-bowel-movement-colored creek without a paddle.
Nevertheless, this isn’t ideal. The Pelicans do have an alien in Anthony Davis to help get them by while Holiday heals, and Eric Gordon and Tyreke Evans can do nasty things when they’re playing at full tilt. But the Pelicans play in basketball’s most difficult division. If they hope to be anything more than a seventh- or eighth-seeded playoff team, they’ll need all hands on deck.
Even then, at full strength, with Davis being Davis, their climb up the Western Conference ladder is a long shot. The Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Clippers comprise what is basically an interchangeable top-five conference power structure. The Memphis Grizzlies are still the Memphis Grizzlies. That’s six teams right there. The Pelicans, as of now, project to be that seventh- or eighth-place team, duking it out for a lower-level playoff spot with fringe competitors like the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz.
The Pelicans have enough talent to make a splash, to be sure. But Holiday’s health curbs their offensive potential and, by extension, their ability raise the kind of hell they seem capable of on paper.
In the long run, taking things slow will probably be the smart play. In the interim, the Pelicans need to find a way to tread water without falling too far behind the elite field they hope to join.
