Sixers take Jrue Holiday with 17th pick
June 25th, 2009 | by Kevin Hanson |
Like most bloggers, I expected the Philadelphia 76ers to draft UNC point guard Ty Lawson.
Instead, they drafted UCLA freshman Jrue Holiday. Entering college, Holiday was ranked as the second-best player in his recruiting class by Rivals.com.
Holiday, who was the Gatorade National Player of the Year in high school, didn’t work out for the Sixers. In fact, he was scheduled to work out with them, but he canceled when it was expected he’d go in the top ten picks.
”When (his advisors) thought he’d go in the top 10, he canceled,” said Tony DiLeo, the Sixers senior vice-president/assistant general manager. ”We interviewed him in Chicago (at the predraft combine). We studied him. He fits our team.”
The drawback to taking Holiday over Lawson is Holiday will take longer to develop. The Sixers will still need a starting point guard, preferably Andre Miller.
Here is Scout.com’s player evaluation of Holiday: “There are so many [reasons] to like him: character kid, gets better but most importantly there might not be a kid in the class who places a greater value on winning than him. Can score, pass, defend and basically do it all. Adding some PG in his game for the long term. Coachable.”
In his freshman season, Holiday, who played out of position at SG, averaged 8.5 points, 3.8 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.6 steals per game.
Considering many projected Holiday as a top ten pick yet he will need the opportunity to develop, only time will tell whether this pick was a steal or a reach…
Tags: jrue holiday
