The Pacers’ future point guard may be in their hands with Aaron Holiday
By Ian Hansen
The season started off slow for Holiday as he averaged just one point in 3.2 minutes. However, once November came around, Holiday had a moment to prove that he can hang with the pros as he was promoted to the rotation when Victor Oladipo went out with a knee injury.
On November 17th, he came in to replace Oladipo and ended up shooting 3 of 4 from deep and scored 12 points. He followed this game with a 19 point performance proving he can be a scoring threat in this league. His next three games included two 11 point games and a 12 point game.
In those five games, he not only showed his spot up capabilities but even had glimpses of solid shot creating most notably on November 19th against the Jazz, coming around screens to make a shot off of the dribble, making contact layups, and even bringing the crowd to their feet with flashy “Lance-esque” passing.
While his defense is still a work in progress, he had moments where straight up hustle won him a play, for example, drawing a charge down the stretch on Jeremy Lin and having active hands to force turnovers.
His numbers dipped in late November and stayed relatively the same until the end of March.
Holiday had a rough December shooting and scoring the ball averaging just 5.3 points and shot an abysmal 25 percent from deep in a similar role he had in November. His confidence went downhill and he seemed to lost a touch. When point guards struggle to shoot the ball it is vital for them to facilitate the ball at a higher rate and he didn’t do so until the end of the season.
When the calendar flipped to 2019, Holiday saw his minutes sink to what they were in October and the beginning of November. He did not see much action until January 28th against the NBA’s version of the “evil empire”, Golden State Warriors.
He actually had probably the best all-around game of his career against Golden State with 12 points, four assists, and two rebounds. He shot an efficient 4 of 5 from deep and 50 percent from the field.
Holiday was relatively quiet the rest of the season (minus a 17 point game in February against the Los Angeles Lakers) until March 21st where he had his most efficient game scoring 13 points and went 100 percent from the field. He averaged 9.4 points per game to close the season in April and ended his rookie season on a fantastic note.
The postseason granted Holiday a couple of minutes here and there to close three of the four games but he did not do anything worth noting in his ample opportunities.
His season was a story of fitting in and learning like most rookies while taking in a winning culture.