Justin Holiday is no star, but he might be a nice bench player for the Milwaukee Bucks available during NBA free agency.
Justin Holiday‘s path to the NBA has not been an easy one, despite him being Jrue Holiday‘s older brother. Holiday (Justin, not Jrue) went undrafted in 2011 and played a year overseas before getting his first shot in the NBA.
That shot was a nine-game stint with the Philadelphia 76ers, when he was brought up near the end of the season.
Unfortunately for him, Holiday was not given another shot the next season, and instead spent the year playing in Hungary.
More from Bucks Free Agency
- Remaining free agents who could fill the Milwaukee Bucks’ final roster spot
- 7 free agent targets with ties to new Milwaukee Bucks coach Adrian Griffin
- Ranking Bucks free agents from most to least likely to return next season
- Milwaukee Bucks: Predicting where impending free agents will soon sign
- Milwaukee Bucks: 3 Jeff Teague replacements in 2021 NBA Free Agency
That may have been an L, but Holiday definitely bounced back. He’s spent time with the Golden State Warriors, Atlanta Hawks, Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks in the last four seasons, with New York serving as his most recent stop.
Justin Holiday won’t be seeing the kind of money his brother Jrue will, but he’s played well enough to deserve an NBA deal for next season. Could the Milwaukee Bucks be the team to add him in NBA free agency?
To find out, let’s look through Holiday’s strengths, weaknesses, potential salary and his fit with Milwaukee. Bucks fans might be more aware of Jrue, but Justin is the more realistic option this summer.
Strengths
For once, a player getting traded a few times might actually be a good thing. Justin Holiday wasn’t dumped for future second round picks — he’s been included in two deals involving bigger players, and both times the team that received him elected to keep him.
First, the Hawks traded Holiday to the Bulls, who played him nearly 20 minutes per game after getting him in the Shelvin Mack trade. Then, when Chicago dealt Derrick Rose to New York, the Knicks got Holiday and played him in literally every game in their 2016-17 season.
Clearly, teams don’t mind having Holiday around, to put it mildly. In New York last season, he averaged 7.7 points (a career-high), 2.7 rebounds and 1.2 assists in exactly 20 minutes per game. He also shot more threes than he ever had per game, and made a respectable 35.5 percent of his triples.
Holiday is what he is — a decent wing player who can hit open threes and is athletic enough to keep up with most guys up and down the floor. He’s got some worthwhile strengths, but none of them stick out as an overwhelming asset.
Weaknesses
Holiday can do all sorts of things pretty well. He knocks down a healthy percentage of both his two and three-point shot attempts, he plays defense at a pretty high level, and he grabs a lot of boards for his size.
Unfortunately, in a league where overwhelming traits tend to stick out, Holiday hasn’t been able to demonstrate one yet. He’s a good defender and the metrics bear that out, but he’s not known as a lockdown guy on that end, at least not yet.
He’s a capable three-point shooter, but 35.5 percent is right around average, if a little bit above it. Holiday did take a lot of threes with the Knicks, but his percentage dropped harshly from the 43.3 percent of his triples he hit in his time with the Chicago Bulls.
Justin Holiday might just be a limited player. That’s fine — role players exist in the NBA for a reason. Not everybody can be a star. There is a chance he would find more success in a larger role — namely, that of a starter–going forward. That’s far from a sure thing, but a team thinking that would alter Holiday’s potential salary a lot this summer.
Salary
If teams interested in Justin Holiday see him as a role player and nothing more, he probably won’t see many huge offers. The 6’6″ shooting guard is a capable three-and-d player, but after a bevy of awful contracts were handed to three-and-D guys last NBA free agency period teams are running out of cash.
There just isn’t a lot of cap space to go around in the NBA right now. Once a few max contracts get signed this summer, there won’t be many teams with more than exceptions, a few million in cap space and the ability to sign players to veteran minimum deals (which are also exceptions, by the way.)
There are two ways Holiday could end up getting more than an affordable NBA contract this summer. The first is a team believing he’s a starter-caliber player who hasn’t gotten the chance to demonstrate that just yet. The second is a team low on shooters jumping at the chance to add somebody, anybody, who can sink a three.
Either scenario could absolutely happen. Holiday likely isn’t going to make eight figures per season like Solomon Hill and Allen Crabbe, but anything can happen on the open market. After all, Matthew Dellavedova is getting over $9 million from the Bucks for the next three years, and so is Mirza Teletovic.
Fit With Bucks
Justin Holiday could end up being a steal in NBA free agency. He’s not getting much hype at all in the days leading up to free agency opening, probably because there are some other Knicks things to talk about at the moment.
Additionally, being 28 years old dampens Holiday’s value — teams can’t sell themselves on him being a year or two away from blossoming into a better player as easily. The Bucks don’t really need him to get a ton better, though.
Holiday could be an approximation of Tony Snell, if Snell ends up getting priced out of Milwaukee’s range. Holiday was better last season than Snell was in his last year with the Bulls, and it wasn’t all that close.
| Rk | Player | Age | G | MP | FGA | FG% | 3PA | 3P% | FTA | FT% | TRB | AST | STL | BLK | TOV | PF | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Justin Holiday | 27 | 82 | 20.0 | 6.6 | .433 | 3.3 | .355 | 1.0 | .825 | 2.7 | 1.2 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.8 | 1.3 | 7.7 |
| 2 | Tony Snell | 24 | 64 | 20.3 | 5.3 | .372 | 2.4 | .361 | 0.5 | .909 | 3.1 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.8 | 1.6 | 5.3 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/25/2017.
Potentially plugging Holiday into a starting role is a scary proposition, but doing the same with Snell was last season. For half of the price — and maybe even less than that — Holiday might be worth a look for the Bucks, even if the team doesn’t plan on starting him right out of the gate.
Justin Holiday seems like a promising buy-low candidate for any team in NBA free agency. The Milwaukee Bucks could grab some value by signing him to a manageable contract.