OAKLAND — Justin Holiday is brutally honest about his good fortune just to be on the Warriors’ talent-laden roster.

“It’s a blessing just to sit on the bench and watch this team play,” Holiday said. “So being able to actually play and contribute is finishing my dream.”

When the year began, it was a very modest dream. It didn’t look like Holiday would be anything but a glorified spectator. In the Warriors’ first 24 games, he logged just 50 minutes, almost all of those during garbage time in lopsided wins, and he didn’t play at all in 15 of those 24 games. But that was enough.

Everything changed on Dec. 18, when coach Steve Kerr brought Holiday in for seven meaningful minutes against the Oklahoma City Thunder. He didn’t score but showed impressive defensive skills in a big win. Kerr rewarded him with a 20-minute chunk against the Sacramento Kings four days later, and the 25-year-old swingman responded with 18 points and strong defense in another Warriors victory.

His efforts won him a spot in the Warriors regular rotation, and suddenly, Holiday is averaging 16½ minutes over the six games that started with that breakout performance against the Kings. He’s been an instrumental defensive cog on the Warriors’ reserve unit, and he’s also putting up significant offense. He’s averaging 9.5 points on 47.6 percent shooting (20 for 42), including 9 for 23 from beyond the 3-point arc (39.1 percent).

In the last game against Toronto on Friday night, Holiday had nine points off the bench when Klay Thompson got in early foul trouble and was again stellar at the defensive end, picking up a couple of steals and hounding Raptors shooters along the 3-point line.

“He fits our team with his versatility, length and his ability to switch defensively, and he’s also become an excellent shooter,” said Kerr. “We need that, because we don’t have a ton of shooting coming off the bench at the wing. I gave him the chance, and he’s made the most of it. He’s really earned that spot in the rotation.”

For three long years, it has been Holiday’s dream to establish himself as a solid fixture on an NBA team, but his quest has been fraught with so many setbacks in brief trials with four clubs that he couldn’t have been blamed if he’d given up.

But Holiday, the younger brother of New Orleans Pelicans standout point guard Jrue Holiday, kept pushing in remote basketball outposts such as with the NBA Developmental League’s Idaho Stampede (in Boise) as well as international stints in Aalst, Belgium and Szolnok, Hungary.

“Wherever I was, I just gave it everything I had,” he said. “I wasn’t like, `Well, I’m not in the NBA, so it doesn’t matter.’ I did everything I could to improve my game every year and then come back the next year for another try.”

What Holiday didn’t realize is that the Warriors were watching him all along. They’d seen him at the University of Washington, where he was a two-time All-Pac-10 defender in 2010 and 2011. At an extremely spindly 6-foot-6 — he barely pushed 180 pounds in college — he was viewed as skilled but too slight for the NBA and went undrafted.

Teams were curious, though. The Cleveland Cavaliers took a look, as did the Portland Trail Blazers. The Philadelphia 76ers actually signed him to their roster late in the 2012-13 season, and he got into nine games and got to play alongside his brother. But the Sixers cut him loose in the summer. He hooked up with the Utah Jazz for a month, but they waived him before the season started.

But while with Idaho in the D League in 2012-13, Holiday caught the fancy of Warriors assistant general manager Kirk Lacob, and along with fellow assistant G.M. Travis Schlenk, they continued to keep tabs on his progress. Lacob and Schlenk convinced general manager Bob Myers that Holiday might be a good summer league invite, and the rest is history.

“Kirk, who was our D League G.M. (in Santa Cruz), had always liked him,” said Myers. “Justin put in some really good time in the D League, and we were excited to get him in the summer league. Then he was very good there. Finally, in camp, he showed up really early. Most of the guys play pick-up in September, and he just continued to elevate himself.”

While Holiday made the roster, his playing prospects seemed dim with established veterans Leandro Barbosa and Brandon Rush manning the bench. But Holiday has pushed past them for now, largely because of what he brings at both ends of the floor.