So, what do you think, are you a fan of the pick? Do you like what Aaron Holiday adds to the Indiana Pacers?
Kevin Pritchard and the Indiana Pacers certainly like what the third of the Holiday brothers can bring to the table, pushing the already established UCLA connection one step further.
The Pacers of old may have traded everything to jump up and take Grayson Allen but this isn’t the Pacers of old and Pritchard is looking to run a tight ship, the Indiana President of Basketball Operations stated that any trades up were “cost prohibitive” and was ultimately comfortable picking at 23.
But what does Aaron Holiday offer?
Let’s take a look at some of his numbers to try and analyze what we’ve really got.
Let’s look at what analyst Dean Oliver referred to as the Four Factors of Offense.
For those of you unfamiliar with this, Oliver stated that the primary four factors that contribute to winning a basketball game are Effective Field Goal Percentage, Turnover Percentage, Offensive Rebounding Percentages and Free Throw Rate.
Using this logic, we can take a look at Holiday’s numbers in these categories and add some appropriate weight to each of the four factors.
The problem I’ve got when comparing Holiday to everyone else who was drafted is that in college, as we know, the opponents are wide-ranging.
Because of this, we’ll filter for Strength of Schedule above 5.00 and below 8.00, a fair reflection of UCLA’s SOS for the last two years, which were 6.39 and 6.86, respectively.
Additionally, looking at all three of Holiday’s collegiate seasons could give us a more holistic view of what his time playing in college really looked like in terms of the four factors.
Here are Aaron Holiday’s four factors at UCLA by season:
| Year | eFG% | TOV% | ORB% | FT/FGA | MPG | GP | GS | SOS |
| 2016 | 0.462 | 21.8 | 2 | 0.221 | 31.7 | 32 | 32 | 9.69 |
| 2017 | 0.571 | 19.4 | 1.5 | 0.285 | 26.4 | 36 | 0 | 6.39 |
| 2018 | 0.557 | 18.5 | 1.6 | 0.346 | 37.7 | 33 | 33 | 6.86 |
| Total | 0.535 | 19.6 | 1.7 | 0.294 | 31.8 | 101 | 65 | 7.65 |
Holiday will not come out on top of these rankings in his conference. DeAndre Ayton’s Arizona Wildcats were in the same division as UCLA, and Ayton’s ranking here slotted him as a freak, above everyone else comfortably. We all knew that though.
Where we might hope Holiday would fair well compared to the rest of the group, he, unfortunately, falls pretty low. So low in fact that he has the worst 2018 offensive rating using this method of anyone else in this range. The next lowest ranking for 2018 is Landry Shamet. Shamet, though, did play against a lowly 5.46 SOS.
Kevin Huerter comes slightly above both of them whilst playing against stronger opposition, but he was drafted too early for the Indiana Pacers to consider him anyway. The stand-out here is Josh Okogie, the Shooting Guard out of Georgia Tech, who again was taken before the Pacers were on the clock. But where Okogie fell on four factors was in his eFG%. Okogie got to the line a LOT, only beaten in this range by #4 pick Jaren Jackson Jr. Okogie would take a free throw after 41% of his shot attempts.
But I digress… Okogie isn’t the shooter Holiday is. Aaron Holiday’s most impressive number in these factors was without a doubt his eFG%, coming in at just below 56% last year. Only Bojan Bogdanovic and Darren Collison were better in this field last season in Indiana. Sure, they had NBA competition, but we know that and we have to try to find a comparison.
Where Holiday’s offensive factors let him down is in his turnover percentages – but who is having a #23 pick handling the ball in excess? And his offensive rebounding – If you want a 6’1 point guard to be worrying about offensive rebounding at a high rate then we’ve got a far bigger problem. Pritchard and the Pacers though seem to have recognized that this isn’t where they want Holiday.
His ORB percentage was still actually better than Bojan Bogdanovic’s, who was the worst offensive rebounder on the Indiana Pacers last season. But perhaps using Bogdanovic as a comparison is a bad idea.
Bojan is a shooter. Last year, he made the second highest volume of shots from behind-the-arc for the Pacers with 155 at a 40% clip, more than anyone besides the likely Most Improved Player in the NBA. If we take a look at Holiday’s shooting from distance we can see he made over 40% in all three years for UCLA.
That takes us back to that eFG% we mentioned earlier. If that’s Holiday’s role then let’s go rank him by that, and you know what, let’s use every PG in the draft for this one.
Here, we find Holiday looking a lot more favorable and can begin to see what Pritchard may have liked.
Holiday does indeed fall only 6th out of 15 at the point guard position by eFG% but you might be surprised who is up top. Only one player drafted before Holiday is above him in this category – Jerome Robinson at #13 (who was considered a reach).
Pick |
Player
eFG%
TOV%
ORB%
FT/FGA
MPG
SOS
38
Khyri Thomas
0.629
13.4
4.0
0.196
31.7
8.10
26
Landry Shamet
0.622
15.5
1.6
0.270
31.7
5.46
33
Jalen Brunson
0.604
10.7
1.2
0.251
31.8
10.24
31
Elie Okobo
0.566
20.0
2.0
0.212
26.3
EURO
13
Jerome Robinson
0.564
13.9
1.5
0.285
36.0
7.20
23
Aaron Holiday
0.557
18.5
1.6
0.346
37.7
6.86
54
Shake Milton
0.551
13.3
2.1
0.343
36.4
3.66
5
Trae Young
0.518
18.2
1.3
0.382
35.4
10.56
11
Shai G-A
0.516
17.7
3.2
0.379
33.7
10.73
34
Devonte’ Graham
0.510
15.5
2.0
0.335
37.8
11.87
8
Collin Sexton
0.498
14.2
4.1
0.447
29.9
10.64
32
Jevon Carter
0.498
14.4
2.4
0.261
34.7
9.36
15
Troy Brown
0.494
18.8
5.9
0.242
31.2
4.84
24
Tony Carr
0.482
11.0
3.0
0.245
35.4
7.79
Note: Anfernee Simons has not been included above as he has no stats available.
So why didn’t the Indiana Pacers take one of those other guys?
Where they excel in their shooting percentage, it’s perhaps their one trick.
Only three point guards got to the line at a better rate than Holiday. #5 overall pick Trae Young, #8 Collin Sexton, and #11 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
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Holiday can shoot, but he can also get fouled and make foul his shots.
Holiday’s downfalls are, as we’ve already mentioned, his turnover percentage (but he won’t be a primary ball-handler right now) and his offensive rebounding (but he’s not been drafted for that). The other two areas, when combining them, are solid.
Holiday is shooting worse than only five guys and none of them get to the line as well as he does, Holiday even out-rebounds the #13 pick in Jerome Robinson.
When we look at the rookies below Holiday and wonder, should we have traded back? We see that other than Shake Milton the drop in eFG% is significant. Those guys aren’t nearly as consistent shooters. And Shake Milton’s strength of schedule shows he’s probably a bit more of a risk than Holiday is.
So, let’s stop comparing Holiday to everyone else and look at where he gets his shots off.
Synergy Sports shows that Holiday should not have the ball in his hands with a short amount of the shot clock left, shooting just an effective 31.9% in these situations and it’s not what he’s made for.
What does stand out, though, is that Holiday falls in the top 16% of college players in spot-up opportunities, making 1.113 points per possession. His already excellent eFG% shoots up further to 60.9% from these spot-up shots. Off-screen, Holiday also stands out as being excellent, falling in the top 10%.
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Where are his areas for improvement? Exactly where you’d expect them to be if we’re looking at Holiday as a shooter. He’s average in transition and his hand-off play is just… fine. Not great, not bad, just remember that he’s a rookie and try to use him for what we’ve already discussed.
One area which does look to be a huge hole is Holiday’s left-side isolation, the drop in his percentage from right to left is massive.
Albeit a small sample-size; on the right Holiday was in the top 5% in college but on the left, he’s down in the bottom 7%! I doubt the Pacers plan to use him in isolation at this point in his young career but it’s worth noting early on.
You’ll notice I didn’t mention points per game, assists or any of the standard. Why? I don’t think that’s what we should be expecting, and it won’t matter. It seems he needs to be used for a specific role, as a player who can shoot and get to the line.
And if he’s used correctly, he can no-doubt be an effective addition to the team. Maybe it takes some time to get there too.
Next: Pacers trot out Aaron Holiday to the media
One thing we can almost certainly see coming in the near future though is Joe Young leaving the Indiana Pacers. I think his time might be up. It’s Aaron Holiday time, after all.