Justin Holiday Proving To Be Great Mentor For Chris Duarte

Indiana Pacers, NBA
NBA Analysis Network

The Indiana Pacers have not played as well as they had hoped they would during the 2021-22 NBA season. Indiana is currently 9-15, three games out of the last NBA Play-In Tournament spot in the Eastern Conference.

On paper, this is a team that should be challenging for a playoff spot, but things have not clicked. They have dealt with some injuries and players are not performing up to the levels that they are capable of. But, there are some bright spots on the team, one of them being rookie Chris Duarte.

Duarte was the No. 13 overall pick out of Oregon and was labeled as one of the most NBA-ready players in this year’s draft class. He is a little older than most prospects, as he is already 24-years old. That has certainly helped him be prepared for the league, but at the end of the day, he is still a rookie that can need some guidance.

Luckily for him, he has a great veteran mentor taking him under his wing in Justin Holiday. Holiday is in his ninth season in the NBA and has learned a lot of things along the way. He is now in a position to pass those things onto younger players such as Duarte much like veterans did for him early in his career.

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One of the things Holiday has helped Chris Duarte with recently was a role change. Duarte started the first 15 games of his NBA career, something that is commonplace for lottery selections. But, he was moved to the second unit after that, which is when Holiday stepped in to provide some helpful advice.

“Now, I’m a little older, I’ve played in this league a while,” Holiday said after Monday’s contest against the Bulls. “Starting and not starting doesn’t matter to me. But I do remember when I was his age, and it did.”

“I know the mentality (Duarte) has. He’s put a lot of work in. He’s a great player. (He’s) one of our top scorers and will be a starter in this league. It’s just sometimes, on certain teams, what that role is for you — or how it works for you — sometimes it looks a little different than how you want it to be.”

Duarte has presumably been a starter at every level of his basketball career. Adjusting to a bench role is not an easy thing to do, but Holiday himself has plenty of experience doing both.

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Holiday has played in 525 games and started 235 of them. He knows how difficult it can be to juggle between them and was ready to instill that wisdom on Duarte.

“It’s hard,” Holiday admitted. “When you’re young, you focus a lot on being the starter and doing stuff like that. I’m just trying to give him a different sight of how he can still help. He’s still just as valuable even though he doesn’t have that starting role.”

Chris Duarte struggled a bit in his first two games off the bench but has begun finding his stride. He has scored in double-figures four consecutive games coming in with the second unit.

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The Puerto Rico native is still receiving plenty of minutes and can be an even bigger part of the offense with the second unit not having as many scoring options as the starting five does. He has a good attitude about the change, which is important as well.

“Coach talked to me about coming off the bench,” Duarte said. “I told him I’ll do anything you ask me to do. If that’s what’s going to help the team win games, then I’ll do it.”

In the season, Durate has played in 21 games and is averaging 13.0 points, 4.0 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 0.9 steals in 29.5 minutes per game. He is also knocking down 36.8 percent of his 3-point attempts and is proving that he was indeed ready to contribute to an NBA team.

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