Jrue Holiday’s first summer-league game
July 7th, 2009 | by Kevin Hanson |
If “numbers don’t lie,” the stats don’t say what coach Eddie Jordan and GM Ed Stefanski are saying.
In his first-ever NBA game (in the Orlando Summer League), rookie point guard Jrue Holiday made only three of 11 shots for nine points. Plus, he turned the ball over five times while dishing out only two assists.
On a positive note, the rookie played solid defense recording four steals and two blocked shots.
“We like Jrue Holiday,” said Jordan, according to Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Daily News. “There’s no fear . . . He’s got a lot of point-guard mentality. A lot of point-guard personality.”
“I thought he played well in spurts,” Stefanski said. “I thought he got tired. Down toward the end, I thought he made some poor decisions because he got tired. You’ve got to learn how to play through this situation.”
Holiday was the youngest player on the court and last year played out of position (shooting guard) at UCLA. But he felt that adjusting to the speed of the NBA game wasn’t the issue for him.
“I’m pretty much running like that anyway, so that wasn’t the issue. For me, it’s really that I need to calm down a little bit, see everything, and just calm my nerves since it was my first pro game.”
And what would “calm my nerves” is having a veteran point guard on the roster that would allow Holiday to develop.
Tags: jrue holiday
