The NBA announced the First and Second Team All-Defensive on Tuesday and almost everybody in the league agreed that one name was missing from both squads. New Orleans Pelicans guard Jrue Holiday has been one of the best defenders in the league for quite some time now but he doesn’t receive as much credit as he deserves.
The First Team is composed of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Ben Simmons, Rudy Gobert, and Marcus Smart. The 2019-20 NBA All-Defensive Second Team consists of Kawhi Leonard, Brook Lopez, Bam Adebayo, Patrick Beverley and Eric Bledsoe. None of these teams featured Holiday and several players around the league came in his defense, making the case for the Pelicans star.
JJ Redick, Jrue’s teammate, took to Twitter to show his disagreement with these starting lineups.
When it’s nearly unanimous amongst your peers that you are the best defensive guard in the league and you don’t make either All-Defense team…that’s a snub. @Jrue_Holiday11
— JJ Redick (@jj_redick) September 9, 2020
Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers agreed with Redick, calling it a ‘snub.’
Beyond a snub . https://t.co/cxklDjN4tJ
— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) September 9, 2020
Lonzo Ball also showed his support retweeting a tweet from the Pelicans about Holiday being snubbed.
Other players like Andre Iguodala recently talked about Holiday and his quality as a defender. It looks like Iggy predicted what was going to happen with Jrue during a recent interview with Bill Simmons.
“I’ve seen this guy guard Steph better than anybody. I’ve seen him guard Durant for 40 minutes. He should have been DPOY 2-3 times, First-Team D every year. He’ll never get that household name credit,” Iguodala said.
https://twitter.com/PrestonEllis/status/1303488740917227526
Holiday is one of the most underrated players in the league and even though his own colleagues praise him for his defensive talent, that doesn’t seem to be enough for him to win an award. He received 18 total voting points.
