TUALATIN — They toured China together as ambassadors for Adidas. They won gold medals together on Team USA. They talked regularly about joining forces together one day on the same NBA team.
But before Jrue Holiday and Damian Lillard could officially celebrate becoming teammates, the pair of veteran All-Star point guards had to put one pesky little annoyance behind them.
Wi-Fi.
During Lillard’s two-year stint with the Milwaukee Bucks, he rented Holiday’s home in Milwaukee. It was filled with toys, a rock-climbing wall and a special playroom, which made it uniquely perfect for Lillard’s trio of young children. But it also was plagued by spotty Wi-Fi that created a barrage of first-world problems for a modern NBA player.
“He texted me a couple times about the Wi-Fi,” Holiday said Tuesday, during an introductory news conference at the Blazers’ practice facility in Tualatin. “That’s my bad. Sometimes you just want to be off the grid. But, no, seriously, I ended up getting it fixed and everything was cool. Sometimes dealing with life without Wi-Fi can be hard.”
Things should be much easier moving forward. The star players have finally found a home together with the Blazers, thanks to the trade that brought Holiday to Portland and the free agent signing that lured the injured Lillard back to Rip City.
“I’ve always been a fan of Jrue, I’ve always wanted to play with him,” Lillard told reporters last week at his youth basketball camp in Portland. “I think we’ll play well beside each other.”
The feeling inside the Blazers’ front office is that Holiday will play well alongside everyone in Portland’s locker room. The 6-foot-4, 205-pound point guard seems to be the perfect piece for an organization trying to navigate the tricky evolution from rebuilding afterthought into playoff contender. Holiday is not only widely regarded as one of the NBA’s best perimeter defenders, but also as one of the league’s best people, and his combination of talent and character will carry immeasurable weight inside the Blazers’ young locker room.
Holiday and Lillard likely will have to wait a year to play together, as Lillard is expected to miss all of the 2025-26 season recovering from Achilles tendon surgery. Meanwhile, part of Holiday’s charge is to mentor third-year point guard Scoot Henderson, the No. 3 pick of the 2023 NBA Draft.
When Holiday was a young-and-hungry rookie in Philadelphia, he leaned on veterans like Andre Iguodala and Elton Brand and assistant coach Aaron McKie, who collectively showed what hard work looked like and taught Holiday to harness his basketball creativity.
“Just be solid,” is what Iguodala used to tell Holiday, day after day after day, a message that became so irritating and so monotonous, Holiday joked that Iguodala was a “jerk.”
Now, at age 35 and with 16 seasons in the rearview mirror, Holiday is ready to be the Blazers’ jerk.
“My rookie year, he was just on me,” Holiday said of Iguodala. “He was on me about a lot. And I didn’t really understand why until later. He obviously saw something in me that I guess I hadn’t seen yet. And just constantly being on me and harping on me about being consistent and things that I have to do were super important. I also had Aaron McKie as a coach. So he was kind of like my player-coach, who really instilled in me a lot of hard work. And because we were the same position, he coached me up a lot on how to be solid as a not just as a player, but as a human, and how kind of how that translates on and off the court.
“I know when I was younger and first coming in, I had vets. But I tried not to look at them as vets, more just kind of like study everything around me. And even though I’m at this age now, I feel like I still try to do the same thing, even though guys might be younger and I might not like the same type of music or we might not be into the same thing. But I also feel like that’s what makes us a team — finding commonality and be able to mesh over that and then kind of translate to the court.”
Between Holiday, Lillard and coach Chauncey Billups, a Hall of Fame point guard, Henderson will have a drool-worthy collection of mentors.
But any guidance from Holiday will also come with an eye on something the Blazers haven’t done regularly since 2021: Win.
The man who has played in two All-Star games and been named to six NBA All-Defensive teams is most proud of directing two NBA championship teams, and he made it clear Tuesday that his thirst to win will not dry up on a team that has jockeyed for lottery position four consecutive seasons.
“Honestly, I can just be me,” Holiday said. “I don’t really know how to do anything else. So come here and just be the person that I’ve always been, and, again, try to not just help out as much as possible, but to try to win. I think as a current player who’s won, (who’s) kind of been through the struggle not too long ago to win the championship, I still have that feeling and that itch. So I’m kind of closer to what that feeling is like and how hard it is to actually win.”
As for his role, Holiday said, he is “here to fit in wherever I fit in.” He said he believes his defense fits “anywhere” and his offense is equally adaptable.
While fans and pundits have spent the last five weeks debating how Billups and the Blazers’ coaching staff will split up point guard minutes, Holiday said he doesn’t see any reason why he and Henderson can’t play many of them together.
“Scoot is aggressive,” Holiday said. “And how he gets to the basket is amazing. I think that me being able to space the floor and shoot the three is something that would help him out. And I know he’s been shooting the ball better and he’s been in the gym and working. But I think for me, just being able to play off him, knowing that Scoot is kind of the next one up and to be able to go out here and really just showcase what he can do.”
The same goes for a future alongside Lillard, whenever that might come.
“I think I play every position,” Holiday said. “I think I’ve proven that and shown that throughout my career. I’m a complete basketball player, so you can’t just put just one position on me. And even the way the game is changing now, there’s so many guys who may have never played point guard, and you come into the league and they’re playing point guard now. So I feel like I’m a good fit with anyone. And, again, Dame’s game is so easy to play with. He opens up the floor because of his scoring ability and his shooting ability. And he gets you open shots because his of his driving ability. So I feel like what’s not to want to play with?”
Especially now that the pesky Wi-Fi situation is no longer an issue.
“My Wi-Fi wasn’t that bad,” Holiday deadpanned as he sauntered away from his Tuesday news conference.
— Joe Freeman | jfreeman@oregonian.com | 503-294-5183 | @BlazerFreeman | @freemanjoe.bsky.social
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