On and off the court, the Celtics’ indispensable Jrue Holiday is guided by his faith - The Boston Globe (2024)

Jrue Holiday, the Celtics’ indispensable guard, has lived life motivated by his faith, which tells him to treat those around him better than himself, to care for those who need care, and to impact those close and not-so-close to him with generosity and concern.

Asked about his reputation as a person with lasting loyalty and a selfless demeanor, he smiled and was hesitant.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t really have the time for hate. There’s so many other things that are troubling and going on and I feel like I relate to every player because I’ve been through it.

“I feel like you can relate to anybody’s struggle. It’s just about being comfortable enough to be vulnerable and talk. I know you’re going through it and that’s tough and then just persevering, just being a good person.

“I don’t know why being a good person is so weird to talk about or weird to be.”

Holiday’s reputation as a man preceded his reputation as a player. He was married by age 23 to his college sweetheart, Lauren Cheney, a soccer player at UCLA who went on to win two Olympic gold medals for Team USA. He left the Pelicans prior to the 2016-17 season to attend to Lauren, who was battling a brain tumor while pregnant with their first child.

“There was somebody that told me that in his opinion, a healthy relationship is putting your spouse before yourself, and when both parties do it, it’s a great marriage,” he said. “It’s a great bond and I feel like me and my wife have tried our best to do that. Even in her hardest times, she has still tried to put me first.

“My wife has a brain tumor and she’s five months pregnant and she’s still worrying about me and worrying if I’m OK. She has every right to worry herself.

“I think that’s one of the biggest things I’ve learned is we’ve tried to do our best to put each other before ourselves because then at that point it’s like I really cared for her. She is the most important thing to me but she also treats me like that.”

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla doesn’t smile much, but he gleams about his faith, and before he even met Holiday, he read some of the guard’s entries on the faith app Hallow.

“I would listen to his prayers; I got to know his heart,” Mazzulla said. “Then I coached him in the All-Star Game. I always had this spiritual connection that we would end up in the same area at some point.

“I kind of felt like I knew him before I knew him just because of the way he prays, and I knew his heart. Our relationship now is, sometimes we talk to each other, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we just give a head nod. Sometimes I see his wife, I give them a hug; sees my wife, give them a hug.”

Parental guidance

Faith is what was stressed to Jrue and his siblings. His parents, Shawn and Toya, met as athletes at Arizona State. They drove Justin, 14 months older than Jrue, and his brother to various AAU and youth league basketball games around southern California’s Inland Empire and San Fernando Valley.

Shawn and Toya raised their children to trust their faith in God, and that philosophy cemented trust. Justin once called home from a friend’s house and told his parents his friends were watching an inappropriate movie and he hung outside until they eventually joined him and bypassed the movie. Young Jrue once covered his head with a pillow in a similar situation and then told his parents, “That’s PG-13 and I’m 8!”

“They were like twins; they were always together,” Toya said of Justin and Jrue. “We didn’t have to worry about them doing drugs, alcohol. They wanted to be the best.

“Our whole goal was to raise these decent, loving human beings. Let’s keep them alive, let’s give them what they need.

“[The NBA] wasn’t our dream, this was their dream and we were just like, ‘Hey, if that’s what you want to do, we’ll help you. We’re Team You and we’ll just ask questions and figure out what we have to do.’ ”

Holiday, 34, signed with UCLA out of North Hollywood’s Campbell Hall High School with visions of winning a national championship. He planned to spend multiple years at UCLA, but he said he was essentially nudged out after a solid but not spectacular freshman year.

“I knew my ability at that point, that I was good enough to make the NBA, but I wanted to do something in college,” he said. “I went to school to win. UCLA had went to three Final Fours the three years prior.

“So I wanted to go back and kind of put a stamp on my college career, but me and my parents were in a meeting with the coach at the time [Ben Howland] and the conversation didn’t do so well and it was pretty much my mom who was like, ‘Yeah, we’re just going to go into the draft. We’re not going to come back.’ ”

Holiday was drafted 17th overall by the 76ers in 2009, and Shawn and Toya asked Jrue’s grandmother to live with him during his rookie season. He handled the big city well, constantly keeping in touch with his parents. He established a reputation as a rock-solid teammate, bonding with mentors such as Andre Iguodala, who was in his sixth season.

“Jrue speaks a lot to the upbringing of his family,” said Iguodala, now the executive director of the NBA Players Association. “It’s a uniqueness. I remember first meeting him, he was a quiet kid, but he had that smile you might catch once in a while.

“His presence off the court doesn’t really reflect his presence on the court because he’s very reserved, very humble, very comfortable with himself, which is a rare trait amongst professional athletes.

“Once I got on the court with him the first time — this was like in my prime, this was when I was good — I remember going at full speed and he just taking the ball from me and I was like, ‘Wait, that hasn’t happened before and I’ve been in the NBA for a few years.’ I just started watching really closely.

“I was blown away by a kid this young, his maturity, and how he can control the game on either side of the floor. I was like, there is something deeper to him because most guys don’t like playing defense like that. But he also had the offensive attributes.

“We had some interesting times in Philadelphia. That’s a tough market to play in, but I think that’s made us who we are. We had to grow up really fast. We had to go through real pressure.”

‘His will is unbreakable’

Holiday has been named to the All-Defense team six times but he is also the only three-time winner of the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award and a Joe Dumars Sportsmanship Award winner. His arrival in Boston was met with excitement because of his championship pedigree and professionalism.

He helped the Bucks win the 2021 NBA championship and a few days later jumped on a plane to Tokyo to join Team USA for its gold medal run in the Olympics. He has blended in perfectly in Boston, becoming a versatile complement with the ability to dominate when needed, such as his 26-point, 11-rebound effort in Game 2 of the Finals against the Mavericks.

“Gotten to know Jrue a lot,” teammate Jaylen Brown said. “Jrue is, like I described in the beginning of the season, he’s like an assassin. He just has a will and a might about him. I’m the same. You recognize that and you respect that.

“His will is unbreakable. He’s going to show up. He’s going to be there. He’s going to be in the fight with you. I’ve been against him on the other side, so you could feel it.

“I think that’s where the respect for me and him, just being opponents, but now him being on the same team, it’s an honor. His willingness to sacrifice, his willingness to adapt, and then be successful where he’s adapting to.”

Holiday has been a monumental part of the Celtics’ success this season, and team president Brad Stevens liked his presence so much he signed Holiday to a four-year contract extension.

He’s going to be here for a while, one of the voices of reason, always relying on his principles, always the family man, always the consummate teammate, always comfortable in his own skin and never denying his faith.

“It’s hard, and sometimes it’s definitely finding the peace and where it comes from,” he said. “I get a lot of peace from my family. I get a lot of peace from being spiritual and going to church but also having a spiritual relationship with my wife where she can also help me.

“I’m a basketball player, but that’s not all that I do. I’m also a father. I love music. I love different cultures. I love different foods. There’s a lot of things I can find love in and that’s what I’ve tried to do.

“It just really seems like my life has been so much more fulfilled by other people’s success because I get to join that journey, I get to share it with somebody.

“I feel like all that means a lot. Some of the best times you do it with other people. There are cool times when you do stuff by yourself but most of the time it’s with other people.”

Gary Washburn is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at gary.washburn@globe.com. Follow him @GwashburnGlobe.