Pelicans Guard Jrue Holiday on The Pelicans Podcast presented by SeatGeek

April 15, 2020

On how he and his family are doing right now:

Jrue Holiday: Man, we're doing well. We're staying home, which is the best thing we can. We walk the neighborhood a little bit. My daughter is currently in the pool swimming, and the weather has been great here. It's been kind of a blessing. But yeah, man, everybody in the family is doing well.

On how he and his wife Lauren are keeping themselves and their daughter J.T. entertained:

Jrue Holiday: Finding different things, different crafts – Amazon's been amazing – but different crafts to do if it's with paint or chalk. We do her letters, shapes, and numbers. We kind of get the school thing in, like 30 minutes to an hour a day. That helps. I've been watching movies with her…kind of movies that I grew up with like “Hercules”. She watched “Mulan” the other day and really liked it, so I'm really excited about that. Yeah, man, you just have to be creative.

On his daughter saying she wanted to watch movies all day yesterday and if that actually happened:

Jrue Holiday: It happened until about three o'clock. So, that's actually longer than I – I know, and that's like a dream of mine. My wife and my daughter can't sit still, so (they are) always going outside or doing something or having an activity for them. But when she said she wanted to stay in bed all day, that was like a dream come true for me. But, she did pretty well until about three.

On if he’s watching the same movies on repeat or if he’s able to mix it up:

Jrue Holiday: Yeah. One that I had never seen was “Trolls 2” or “Trolls the Rock Tour” or whatever…the new one. That was actually a really good movie. I enjoyed it, I think J.T. enjoyed it too. Lo (Lauren) fell asleep, so I guess she didn't enjoy it that much. But, it was – that was one I enjoyed. We watched some of the minion movies, (“Despicable Me”) one, two, and three. She always wants to watch “Frozen” though, like “Frozen 2”. And since we've seen it a million times, I didn't let her watch it yesterday.

“Frozen 2” or even “Frozen”, but she always talks about like in “Frozen 2” there's not a – there's not like a scary part or a bad guy. And the fact that she can, I guess, kind of sense that as a three-year-old is amazing to me. But, every other…like “Hercules” has a bad guy, “Mulan” has a bad guy. I guess the Troll movies didn’t necessarily have a bad guy, but there was kind of like scary parts. That’s what “Frozen 2” is pretty much about. I feel like that's why kids love it because you sing, and there's no part that you really get really nervous in. Be prepared just to watch that every day, three or four times a day.

On what he is doing to stay in shape:

Jrue Holiday: I’ve got a little bit of home gym stuff. We got a Peloton. We have like slant boards, kettlebells. We have bands to do band work. We box…me and my wife do. We kind of get that in. We got a jump rope. That stuff is pretty fun. Me and my wife go on – around our neighborhood – we do maybe like a two and a half-mile run…that's not for me, that's all the soccer player. That's all my wife. I do not like running. But, we do that and then with my trainer Mike (Guevara), we do some kind of like field work. I put on the cleats, put on the gloves and do like some football drills, which have been really, really fun and the weather has been really nice. That's probably been one of the funnest parts for me.

On the difference between being in 'shape' and being in 'basketball shape':

Jrue Holiday: For me, it's totally different. I think the energy that you exert when you play basketball can't be replicated. You can do it the best you can, but I think the only way you can do that is actually by playing basketball. Being able to – I mean just run in an instant, sprint to a jog, to back-peddling, to jumping up for a ball, to lunging, sliding defensively, fighting somebody in the post, fighting somebody over a screen, fighting somebody to get over a screen if you're an offensive player. I just feel like you kind of have to be in basketball and be able to do that type of stuff on the court to be able to get that. But I mean there are things to kind of maximize it outside. Yeah, you can run all day and you can ride bikes and get a Peloton bike and do all that, but there's just something different once you step on the court.

On the frustration of the NBA season being suspended right when the Pelicans were making a push for the playoffs:

Jrue Holiday: Yeah, man. When you get in a groove or you find that chemistry as a team, it's a really good feeling. It's kind of like a little bit of a high, and you get like kind of the utmost confidence. It doesn't matter who you're playing or what the schedule is like. We kind of have that confidence anyway, but we were locked in and I feel like that was the most important part. One through 15, we were locked in and we knew the goal and what the goal was, and we felt like we had a great chance to meet that. For that to kind of be disrupted and potentially possibly not even get a chance to complete, really sucks. We put in a lot of work. We've been through a lot this season, just obstacles and being able to fight through that. How this kind of played out kind of sucks.

On the progress the Pelicans have made from game one to the NBA season being postponed:

Jrue Holiday: It was the start of a brand new team where we knew that we had a lot of talent, and it was just about putting that talent together and finding ways to win games. I feel like we started to kind of click, and then when Zion (Williamson) came back and fit him in there and got him playing more, it started getting really fun. You kind of saw the light at the end of the tunnel. So, even still to this day, I still see the light and how good we can be, and I feel like we were just showing the world how good we could possibly be. But, to this point now, it's just kind of like…it's a positive….it is a positive from where we started to where we are now but, again, we wanted to finish it out.

On the balance of being safe but wanting to come back to playing basketball games:

Jrue Holiday: I think that for me personally, the most important thing is obviously health. Rest in Heaven to Karl-Anthony Towns’s mom. That's devastating to hear, and my heart is broken, and I don't know how I would react to that if my mother was in that situation or if I was in that situation. But, I think that's the most important thing right now, is to make sure that we do what we’re supposed to do to keep each other safe. It's not even just about our families. It's about my neighbor and my neighbor's grandkids or my neighbor's grandparents. I just think as a community we have to kind of look out for each other. Yeah, we want to come back and play. No, I feel like it would be weird to play without fans. But at the same time, I feel like we can bring joy back by playing, and if that happens to be without fans and they get to watch on TV and still bring like this camaraderie together where people have hope or something to cheer for, I think that would be cool.

On playing his best basketball of the season right before the hiatus:

Jrue Holiday: Yeah. It’s also kind of weird to think…I think around maybe this time last year – maybe a month before – I had surgery. I’m pretty much a year off of surgery and it took me about that time to really get back to playing at the level that I wanted to play at. I feel like a lot of it was my teammates. Obviously the way BI (Brandon Ingram) played this year was phenomenal. Just watching him and even going back now and watching highlights and watching the games that they play on TV – the playbacks – seeing how BI played, I feel like while I was in it I would try to match his level and his intensity. So he pushed me so much to kind of get to the place where I needed to be. Again, it kind of just sucks that you feel like you kind of get short-changed. I feel like I’m playing the best I can, and our team is playing the best we can, and we wanted to end up going to L.A. in April and hopefully making that eighth seed and playing against the Lakers. Obviously for me personally that would have been a very – and even as an organization – that would have been a very very cool, challenging thing to do.

On how his leadership role has evolved over the past few years:

Jrue Holiday: I think I’ve learned a lot. I think I learned how to communicate with different players. Going through different types of struggles, ups and downs…being able to communicate in that way. For the most part, I feel like I did everything that I usually do. I try to lead by example every single day. I try to empower my teammates. If somebody misses a shot or their playing time is being cut for whatever reason or even having an injury. Just being me, Darius (Miller) and Zion (Williamson) being hurt at the same time, we had a lot of conversations about that. I have a little bit of a history with injuries and surgeries, so just stuff I can pass on. But yeah, for the most part I think that I really just try to lead by example, and anything that I can give, I will try my best to.

On having fellow veterans like JJ Redick and Derrick Favors on this young team:

Jrue Holiday: It was great. From there, something that I might lack, they pick that up. JJ, just from the beginning as you step in, you can feel and hear his presence. Anytime he speaks people listen, and I feel like there’s the kind of presence that I definitely try to mimic. Derrick Favors is a little bit more on the quiet side and he doesn’t talk as much, but when he speaks, literally everybody stops and you can hear a pin drop. I feel like that’s important of Derrick, especially (for) a guy who kind of does everything that nobody wants to do and he’s great at that. He’s great at getting other people open. He’s great at making other people successful and making them look successful. He does not complain at all. Another thing as you kind of look back and learn from him is, if he’s willing to do this and he’s ten (or) eleven years in, maybe that’s just something that I have to look into myself and be like, ‘Alright, well I’m not necessarily the man. I have to do whatever my team needs to win.’ I feel like our leadership roles were all different, but we meshed well together. I think that how we came together was really cool.

On what Vince Carter has meant to him as a basketball player:

Jrue Holiday: Man…Well, starting with what he meant to me as a basketball player, I almost went to (North) Carolina, and part of that was because of Vince Carter. I remember I missed the game where he was in Jersey – I think he was playing against Miami, maybe – and he had like this crazy dunk. I remember walking out to the car for school the next morning – and obviously ESPN is on in my house – and I saw the highlight and then from there all I really tried to do was try to dunk like Vince Carter. Again, I felt like he had all the abilities to be one of the greats that he is. He can shoot. He’s athletic…super athletic. He can dunk on you. He could do whatever and get wherever he wanted to on the court. To be able to start off there, and then to play against him – even towards the end of his career (when) he became more of like a jump shooter – just his versatility, man, the things that he could do…Just playing in this league for that long, the toll (it takes) on your body, you could really tell he took really good care of himself mentally and physically. He’s definitely somebody not only I, but other people should look up to if they wanted to have kind of a long career in this league.

On if he will watch ESPN’s premier of "The Last Dance” on Sunday:

Jrue Holiday: Come on, man. That’s the GOAT, bro. It doesn’t matter what was happening or what was going on, that’s going to be on my TV. Hopefully I can get my daughter to sit down and watch it. She probably won’t care for it, but I’m really excited for it.