LOS ANGELES – Finding Jrue Holiday in the crowd during All-Star Weekend shouldn’t be tough. He punctuated his arrival here in his hometown for tonight’s T-Mobile Rookie Challenge by sporting a bright blue “LA Loves Me” t-shirt and a blue Dodgers baseball cap to match.

As much as Kobe Bryant and Blake Griffin, among others, will play the role of hometown fave throughout this weekend’s festivities, neither Bryant nor Griffin has roots that run deeper than Holiday’s in this city.

He was born and raised here, starred in high school and won state championships at Hollywood’s Campbell Hall and spent his lone college season at UCLA, alongside Darren Collison, before being drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers. So if anyone can appreciate the experience of the 60th All-Star Game and all that comes with it, Holiday is your man.

“I don’t think I could ask for anything more than maybe making the big game, the All-Star Game in my hometown,” Holiday said in a hallway at his downtown hotel. “But really, for my first All-Star experience to be here in my city, with all my family already here, I couldn’t have asked for more.”

The second-year point guard has turned out to be everything the 76ers hoped he would when they selected him with the 17th pick in the 2009 draft, even after he wasn’t selected for tonight’s T-Mobile Rookie Challenge as a rookie. (Sixers rookie Evan Turner, the No. 2 pick in the 2010 Draft, did not make the cut this year.)

“That makes it even sweeter,” Holiday said when reminded that he missed out on this experience last season. “This let’s you know that you’re on the right path, that you are growing and improving. Like I said, I really couldn’t have asked for more.”

Holiday didn’t have the bulk and experience to take over as the Sixers’ starting point guard right away. But he was in the lab faithfully, refining his game and learning exactly what a point guard needs to do in order for his team to maximize its potential. After averaging 8.0 points and 3.8 assists in 51 starts during his rookie season, Holiday has raised those averages to 13.8 points and 6.2 assists in 56 starts during what has become a breakout sophomore season.

“He can play both ends of the floor,” Sixers coach Doug Collins told reporters in Philadelphia recently. “He can disrupt you (on defense). He’s unselfish. He makes the game easier for other people.”

The Sixers are in the seventh spot in the Eastern Conference playoff chase and surging, thanks in large part to Holiday’s steadying influence at the point. He recorded his first triple double this season and in the nine games he scored 20 or more points, the Sixers have gone 7-2. He’s the only player on the Sixers’ roster to start every game this season and has quietly become the catalyst for a team that’s already surpassed its win total from last year.

Yet Holiday refuses to take any of the credit, he points instead to the work Collins  and assistant coach Aaron McKie have put in trying to help him hone his craft.

“It was all about being more aggressive and learning more about how to be a point guard,” Collins said. “And that’s definitely something that me, coach Collins and Aaron McKie are trying to instill in me.  I was a point guard before this but I was really a scorer. In high school it was different, in college we had Darren. So I was never really forced to work on being a true point guard.”

Holiday said he’s still working on some of the particulars, including being the unquestioned leader of his team.

“It is strange being so young, especially when you are respectful guy and you respect your elders, and your having to tell these older guys what to do,” Holiday said. “I have Elton Brand who has been in the league 11 or 12 years and it’s like, ‘why am I telling him what to do? He should be telling me what to do.’ But again, it’s all a part of the process.”

Holiday has more pressing issues to deal with this weekend, namely handling all of the ticket and time requests from family friends here that want to celebrate his return. He also has some homework to do. He made it clear that he plans on returning to All-Star Weekend in the future to play in the All-Star Game and will be paying close attention to the Sunday’s game.

“My immediate family is going to be here and soak all of this up with me,” he said. “But really, I’m going to try to enjoy this experience myself. I definitely have the mindset this year that I want to compare myself to Rajon [Rondo] and Derrick [Rose] and those guys that are the very best, and that’s where it starts. I want to be like them. The best always seem to rise to the top. All these guys I kind of grew up watching, so playing against them and watching them now, I get to learn a lot from them.”

Category: 2011 All-Star / Tags: , 2011 All-Star, Aaron McKie, Darren Collison, Derrick Rose, Doug Collins, Evan Turner, Jrue Holiday, Philadelphia 76ers, Rajon Rondo, T-Mobile Rookie Challenge / 4 Comments /

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