Recording some very big assists
Holidays are making a major impact
Jrue and Lauren Holiday were relaxing in bed at home in California when Jrue heard from New Orleans Pelicans general manager David Griffin: Jrue was headed to Milwaukee as part of what turned out to be a multi-team trade.
A short while later, the news hit the public with reports filling the Internet at about 10:30 p.m. Central Time on Nov. 16.
Shortly thereafter is when Lauren received a message, which included an article that Milwaukee was one of the worst places in America to live if you are African-American. Her friend added, I think you’re going there for a reason.
The next day, Lauren was on the phone.
On the other end was Arvind Gopalratnam, the Milwaukee Bucks’ vice president of corporate social responsibility and executive director of the team’s foundation. He was caught off guard. Usually, when a
new player comes to the team there's a scheduled sit down (or, currently, a Zoom meeting) where community outreach goals are talked about, plans developed, contacts shared.
The Holidays were already on the move, and Gopalratnam didn't know he was trying to catch up.
“There's no sugar coating it, without question it's impressive,” he said. “Because they're impressive people.”
Not that moving across the country in a pandemic with an infant and a fouryear-old isn't enough to think about, but the couple were already looking to incorporate the city of Milwaukee into their Holiday Social Justice Impact Fund. It was established in July when the couple elected to donate $5.5 million of Jrue's remaining 2020 salary to social justice causes, Black-owned small businesses and historically Black colleges and universities.
“We were like yeah, there's work to be done here too,” Lauren said. “Just knowing the racial disparity here and not knowing very much about Milwaukee but knowing obviously there is a huge need here to change that, I feel like was just important to us.
"Like hey, let's do this right way. We're moving to Milwaukee, let's get them on the list. Are there any businesses that we can affect right away here and how can we get involved? And really get involved. We don't want to just like have our names on something. We want to make a difference. I feel like that was really important to us.”
The initial deadline for businesses to apply for aid was in early August, but with the help of the Bucks the Holidays are drilling down into the Milwaukee business community and education system to see where their efforts can immediately be felt.
“This is something they're taking very, very serious,” Jrue's older brother Justin said. “It's not something they just wanted to do during the time of need in the bubble and then that's it. This is something they want to go long term. That's the whole point of doing this, to be able to help and create opportunities and things like that long term.” Then he chuckled a bit.
Justin plays for the Indiana Pacers with their youngest brother, Aaron, and has been traded three times and signed four free-agent deals. He knows what it's like to have to move, expectedly, or out of the blue.
“Now, I can't say I would have done it as fast as they did, but like again, they're very serious about it and it's awesome,” Justin continued. “It's very, very encouraging and hopefully the city of Milwaukee can hear that too. Just understand how much Jrue and Lauren love people and love the communities that they're in and want to show them and help.”
Fundamentally, outreach and giving back isn't new for any member of the Holiday family. Justin and Jrue said it was ingrained at a very young age by their parents Shawn and Toya. And Lauren and Jrue had a long history of giving in New Orleans, but much of it was done quietly.
That changed over the spring and summer of 2020.
They found out their new baby would be a boy shortly after George Floyd was murdered in May. In late June, Lauren penned a heartfelt – and heartbreaking – first person account detailing the racism they witnessed and experienced as a couple. By mid-July, Jrue made several national appearances to announce the donation of his salary and the broad intent of the JLHFund.
In Lauren's letter and Jrue's subsequent interviews, they admitted that while they held very public individual profiles as a gold medal-winning soccer player and All-Star basketball player, this part of their lives they kept private, fighting quietly to be better and to rise above.
But it was time for a different path to find change.
“The harder part was the initial just coming out because we are pretty private, but also I want to say that that wasn't that hard because myself and wife felt this was very important and it needed to be said and needed to be done,” Jrue said.
“I would probably just say the initial was like alright, what kind of reactions are we going to get to it? Hopefully there's a lot of businesses that apply, hopefully it reaches so many people and hopefully other people do whatever they can to help other businesses.”
Lauren added, “For Jrue and I the hard part isn't so much doing this, it's just more so for us, we don't want any notoriety because we did the right thing. That's our biggest thing. Hey, everybody should be doing this. Everybody should be giving back and you don't need a pat on the back for that, for meeting needs in your community.
"So I feel like Jrue and I have always struggled with that kind of spotlight when it's like well, of course, we should be doing this. This is something that is just a part of our everyday lives. I think that that is more so what we struggled with, but I think coming public with it and letting people know what we were doing,
"I think it's been really cool to see that people want to help and people want to put their money where their mouth is or they want to volunteer or they want to be able to make an impact but sometimes they just don't know where to start. So being able to say 'hey, partner with us or you can do this with us,' I think that that has been huge.”
But if Jrue and Lauren may feel sheepish over applause for their recent efforts, Justin was quick to say the impact of doing them cannot be simply measured. It was far more poignant, even for him.
“Everybody had a reason on why that got sparked up and that changed for a lot of us,” Justin said of the decisions to speak up. “For some people it took the things that were happening, and also for some other people it took Lauren and Jrue to go out and do what they did for them to be able to step up and speak about it, step up and find ways to help and help make change.
“I think it was very important that they did that. I understand exactly how they felt because again, I felt the same exact way. It allowed me to be in a space of feeling, maybe even to say supported, in doing something that otherwise you might just have felt I'm just going to go on this limb and just do this myself.
"I know for a fact they have influenced and impacted people in more ways than one.”
This work, these conversations, require balance though. It is intensely personal, and in the quiet moments it can be terrifying.
On Friday night, for example, LeBron James recalled that the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012 changed his entire perspective on what he could, or should do, when it came to stepping out publicly, and forcefully, on social justice issues.
“That was the moment where I knew that it was much bigger than just basketball,” James said, saying he saw his sons in the 17-year-old Martin.
“I believe at that very moment, that's when it began for me because it hit home for me when I thought about
'Bronny' and Bryce.”
In July, before their son Hendricks arrived, Jrue said he wanted his child to see what his father was doing to make his world better. To set an example before those small feet could even walk behind it.
“I do think that my family is a big part of it,” Jrue said. “Just growing up Black and what that's like. Even to LeBron's point, even being able to relate to these things, I feel like it's something that I try to share with other people, just experiences that we've had or whatever it is.
"First, just having a Black daughter. I mean, obviously she's biracial but she's going to be seen as Black and having a Black son where right after the George Floyd incident, I found it was a boy. And just kind of thinking about well, what if that was my son. Or what if that was me and my son had to watch?
"Just even thinking well, how do I raise a Black kid in this type of environment, you know? Do people understand that these are the things that go through my mind when I just really want the same as everybody else, just as equal as everybody else, and I want my kids to have the same opportunities and even better opportunities than me.”
Which brings about an interesting corollary to today.
The Holidays had no way to know that just over a month after their announcement of the JLH Fund that the Bucks would stop basketball in the name of social justice, initiating a wildcat strike on Aug. 26 in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha.
They had no way to know the Bucks would trade for him less than three months after that, or how the vision the Holidays have created would align with the team trading for him. Make no mistake – Bucks general manager Jon Horst sent a truckload of assets to New Orleans for Holiday to win a championship on the court.
But in his offices, Gopalratnam and his team were just as excited as head coach Mike Budenholzer and the basketball side of the organization. That wasn't lost on Horst, either. “It certainly fits into the calculus,” Horst said about the man they traded for. “If you kind of go back to the beginning, every decision that we've made we've really tried to run it through the same type of filtering process and Bucks DNA and character fit and culture fit is a massive part of what we make every decision based on. Talent obviously always matters, but someone's toughness, their grit, their basketball IQ, the way that they treat people, the teammate that they are – those things matter.”
And even though Horst and his team did the best research they could on Holiday, the last few months have been revelatory.
“Even though you think and feel great about it, I could have never imagined how good he is, how smart he is, what a great family person he is, how he interacts with his teammates,” Horst continued. “He's such a connector and a communicator. He has, in a short period of time, already significantly exceeded my pretty high expectations. And Lauren has done the same and his family has done the same.”
Back in mid-November, in bed in California, months after they changed their lives by affecting change in others, Jrue Holiday felt the same sense of need, of a kind of fate, for him and Lauren to come to Milwaukee.
What is interesting is it's something that has been recognized by those who know them best as well, from the message Lauren received the night of the trade to Jrue's friends in the NBA.
“Drew and ‘Lo' are two amazing people who love being in the community,” said Los Angeles Lakers forward Anthony Davis, who developed a close friendship with the Holidays during their years in New Orleans. “That's a family who everybody seems to be drawn to for the love and support they have for any community that they're in.
"I think the city of Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin is getting two people who are genuine people who really love being in the community and want to help everyone around them, no matter what it is.”
And for the Holidays, it's not just about who, what and how or for even how long. He has a player option for 2021-22 he can exercise, and he is eligible for a contract extension in the coming month. But whether they are in Milwaukee through the summer or the next handful of years, they are ready to make change – evidenced by how quickly they picked up the phone in November.
“I definitely thought that, we were here for a reason and we're supposed to be here for a reason,” he said. “Through a pandemic, moving to a different place in the snow with everything that had gone on here, I kind of feel like this was supposed to happen.
"My family are extremely happy to be here and even to be doing this and hopefully we touch just a couple lives. Just really being able to help, however long we're here we really want to make an imprint.”