New Orleans Pelicans: Jrue Holiday fell way back in All-Defense voting

New Orleans Pelicans guard Jrue Holiday fell way back in the 2019-20 NBA All-Defensive team voting. Numerous players believed this was an obvious snub.

On Tuesday night we saw the announcements made for the NBA’s All-Defensive teams for the 2019-20 season. The results were by no means surprising, although there were a number of players who were deserving but, ultimately, missed out. New Orleans Pelicans guard Jrue Holiday is renowned as being one of the best perimeter defenders in the league and has been for a number of years now.

He didn’t end up making either team this season, but there are plenty of people who think he should have, including New Orleans Pelicans teammate J.J. Redick.

Redick wasn’t the only player to come to Holiday’s defense following the announcement, as a certain player who knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of Jrue’s defense took to twitter himself to back up Redick’s claim:

Redick’s tweet in support of Holiday making an All-Defensive suggests that Redick himself is far from the only one amongst NBA players who would’ve had Holiday make the cut. The fact that Lillard quote-tweeted him on this is enough evidence to show that the respect for what Holiday does is there, and amongst the best guards too.

Now, Holiday’s defensive capabilities are definitely unanimously known around the league, but it would be an interesting conversation to have when trying to figure out who the absolute best is. When you have Marcus Smart and Ben Simmons as guards on the first-team, it’s certainly going to be difficult to dislodge either of those selections after the respective years that they had on that side of the floor.

What you do have to look at though is the second-team guards and specifically the difference in votes between them and Holiday. Eric Bledsoe and Patrick Beverley were named to the Second Team. These are selections you can’t really argue with.

But was Holiday more of a justified choice? Perhaps. Beverley had 60 total voting points, whilst Bledsoe had 59. Holiday was a noticeable distance behind with just 18, and to rub salt into the wounds, both Kyle Lowry and Kris Dunn received more votes than this.

Obviously there is no truer way to measure a player’s defensive impact than the eye test, but there were other guards who had better defensive contributions statistically. In Holiday’s case, the fact that he was on a losing team weighs heavily on him not making it. The fact that there were guards who were making big-time plays for competitive teams also keeps him out of the fold.

When it comes down to it, guard defense is becoming more and more significant, and there are a whole lot of guys who you could make a legitimate case for being on at that second-team.  With players like Smart and Simmons playing the way they are at the moment, there should really be a guard in the hunt for the Defensive Player of the Year award, and with the way the league is going, there should be an opportunity for a guard to win one soon, which would be the first time since Gary Payton in 1996.

For Holiday, who made the first-team in 2018 and the second-team last year, he’s finally getting to play in a team that looks to be going somewhere. Next season should be a positive one for the Pelicans, and if they can make strides then count on Holiday being in the conversation next year.