Congrats to Jrue Holiday, The First True Process Champion
It was like playing against a guy who you also owned in your fantasy league; even when they beat you, you still kinda win.
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Man this feels weird. The Milwaukee Bucks, a team on the verge of complete franchise immolation after two blowouts to an already-shorthanded Nets squad in the second round -- so long ago that the Philadelphia 76ers (remember them?) were still in the playoffs and not in a state of total despondence -- are NBA champions. Khris Middleton is a champion. Bobby Portis is a champion. Brook Lopez is a champion. Is Marvin Williams still on the bench there somewhere? If so, he's a champion. Mike Budenholzer is a champion. Giannis Antetokounmpo, who lost a game to Brooklyn when he declined to post up James Harden and then flubbed a potentially easy two in successive possessions, is not only a champion, but a goddamn superhero, closing out his first-ever championship with a 50-point performance, including a 17-19 performance from the free throw line (happy 25th birthday Ben Simmons!). Blugh.
Needless to say, I don't care for it at all. But the good news is that the Sixers do at least get to take credit for a small fraction of this championship, thanks to the presence of Jrue Holiday -- the first true Process alum to take home a championship.
Now, I know what you're thinking: First off, how dare you try to erase the Summer League Sixers' 2014 Orlando title? Very fair point -- the first besides that squad of immortals, I mean. Then, you're probably thinking: What about Process great JaVale McGee, who won two titles with the Warriors and another with the Lakers following his proud Sixers tenure? Also fair, though that one dunk aside, JaVale's service time at the Wells Fargo Center was admittedly pretty brief and undistinguished. Then, you're probably thinking: What about Danny Green's titles with San Antonio, Toronto and L.A. -- do we get to claim those retroactively? Another great question; I'll have to look into that one and good back to you, but the answer of course is "probably."
Finally, you're probably thinking: Does Jrue Holiday really count as Process-era? After all, he was drafted in 2009 while Philly was still under the thumb of the Stefanski/DiLeo administration, and never actually played a game during the Sam Hinkie/Brett Brown era, as the former dealt him on Draft Night in 2013 as his first major act of business. But that act in itself cements Jrue's Process bonafides for all-time -- it was his sacrifice for the squad that essentially got the ball rolling on this whole thing, allowing us to land Nerlens Noel and (eventually) Dario Saric, and ensuring that the Sixers would be bad enough the following season that we would be able to select Joel Embiid with the third pick in the 2014 draft. If Sam Hinkie is the Godfather of the Process, then Jrue is... the Clemenza of the Process, I guess? A crucial part of the extended family, anyway.
And unlike the overwhelming majority of notable 21st century former Sixers, Jrue Holiday seems to have close to a 100% approval rating with Process Trusters. Evan Turner and Michael Carter-Williams might get booed at the WFC, Robert Covington and Andre Iguodala leave much-debated legacies, Jimmy Butler... well, one of the only good things about the past month and a half has been how little we've had to think about Jimothy, so let's not break that streak just yet. But point is, I don't think I've ever heard a negative word said about Jrue, either from the hardcore Hinkieheads or the Composite Philly Sports Media Guy readers. There just wasn't that much drama to his story during his time in Philly -- he was promising, then he was good, and then he was traded. (Even that last part proved mostly uncontroversial, especially as he spent much of his first few years in New Orleans shuffling to and from the IR.) If Sixers fans were polled and asked which currently active former Sixer they'd most like to see win a championship, it'd probably come down to a tight finish between T.J. McConnell and Jrue. (And maybe Dario Šariç, who sadly had to watch nearly this entire finals from the sideline -- come back soon, The Homie.)
Really, Jrue's success is almost a purer vindication, since it was the act of us gifting him to the rest of the NBA that allowed the Process to become what it was. Sure, we could bemoan him not still being on the team -- or even not trading for him last summer when he was available -- but him succeeding out in the world feels more like him proselytizing to the masses on our behalf than him making us pay for letting him go. Even in times this season when he would torture the Sixers during our regular season matchups (which was pretty often), I couldn't really get mad at him. It was like playing against a guy who you also owned in your fantasy league; even when they beat you, you still kinda win.
Does that mean I was fist-pumping for Jrue last night like my first concert back was a DJ Pauly D gig? Not exactly. Though Jrue was certainly a key contributor to the championship squad, it wasn't like he had a career series. Or a career playoffs. Or a career anything. I suppose he did have the one career highlight play -- a strip of Devin Booker that led to a victory-sealing alley-oop to Giannis down the stretch of Game Five, arguably the defining moment of the entire series -- to cap a 27-point, 13-assist night that probably ranked as his finest of this postseason. Then he followed that up in Game Six with a 4-19 shooting night -- not even his worst of the series -- bringing his FG% for the Finals down to a brutal 36%. He was always good enough on defense and distributing so that you couldn't really make Eric Bledsoe comparisons with a straight face, but he was always bad enough putting the ball in the hoop to act like his upgrade over Bledsoe was worth the Bucks' expenditure of resources if Milwaukee finished anywhere short of the championship.
But the Bucks did win the championship, and now all those 4-19, 7-21 and 2-11 nights Jrue suffered through this postseason couldn't matter less. The three first-round picks and two swaps? Similarly irrelevant. The $160 million over the next four years? Does he want another 20 million just to cover inflation and cost of living, perhaps? Hell, one key defensive play in Game 7 of the 2016 finals alone redeemed the entire Kevin Love era in Cleveland, and he was significantly more useless otherwise in that series than Jrue was in this one. It might not be the triumph of triumphs for The Damaja, but it's still all the validation he'll ever need -- and he has to kick up something like 20-25% of that validation to the Process for sending him on his way there.
I'm still not a fan of it in general. It feels like the Bucks skipped the line, like they got away with one, like they won a title that wasn't theirs to win. Shit happens every year, of course, and there's maybe two titles in 21st century NBA history that don't deserve some degree of asterisk. But man, if the Nets only suffered a major injury to one of their top three players and not two of them -- and even with one of his co-stars out and the other hobbled, if Kevin Durant had just cut his toenails a little closer to the cuticle before Game Seven -- the Bucks get bounced, and it's highway time for Coach Bud and maybe a bunch of other folks in Milwaukee, while Giannis gets that much closer to being the Damian Lillard of next offseason. No matter how impressive they were over their four straight wins in these finals, it's pretty hard to wash that stain out for me.
Would I rather have been watching Kyrie Irving and James Harden playing Newcomb with the Larry O'Brien trophy tonight, though? Probably not. Or LeBron James finishing off his Space Jam 2 media tour with his fifth ring? Certainly not. Or Trae Young and John Collins having their podium moment while Collins is somehow already wearing a T-shirt of him having his podium moment? It's not particularly close. This isn't what I wanted, but Giannis seems like a nice guy, Milwaukee is a pretty chill city, and the world is certainly a better place with Jrue Holiday having a championship ring. It could be worse. It still beats thinking about the current Sixers.