They waited with terror, not knowing what would happen. Ruminating on what could happen. Suddenly, they realized just how unpredictable life could be. How arbitrary it all seemed. How things could be fine one day, then twist into chaos the next.

Back in 2016, Jrue Holiday’s wife, Lauren, a former star midfielder for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, underwent medical testing. She had been experiencing terrible headaches and was six months pregnant with their daughter at the time. Then, one word from the doctors changed everything. 

Tumor.

The couple let the word sink in. In a moment, their entire world had shifted. A world where Lauren had been a two-time Olympic gold medalist and FIFA World Cup champion and where Jrue was a star point guard for the New Orleans Pelicans. The doctor told them the brain tumor was benign. The road ahead was no less daunting, as both Jrue and Lauren were still in shock, still fearful for the future. “I don’t think people realize how strong she was in a situation where her life and her child’s life were possibly in danger,” Jrue says.

Change, Jrue was learning, could come at any moment. For anyone. Change, he soon realized, was the new normal for the Holidays. There would always be a before and an after. The way things were and the way things would be.

Lauren was strong for both of them. “She is my rock and the foundation of our home,” Jrue says. “The stability.” In turn, he mirrored her strength and positivity, assuring her that everything would be OK. But deep down, he struggled, too. Lauren and Jrue were thriving and about to start a family. He had also found his rhythm and a new home in New Orleans. The things he had always prayed for were coming to fruition. Now, the future was in question.

“It wasn’t really until a while after that I actually got to sit down and talk to my wife and express to her how scared I was in certain moments,” Holiday says. “And just told her everything that I was going through in that moment. Not just the positive, but the other side of that, too.” Nothing either had endured up to that point could have prepared them for this kind of change. “You can’t really replicate that as an athlete,” Holiday says. “There’s so many challenges that you can—where your sport can help you in life situations—and I feel like this was a time where it couldn’t really help. You really had to be strong in your faith.”

Holiday, who was in a contract year at the time, took an indefinite leave of absence from the Pelicans to care for Lauren. “He was like, ‘If this is my last year playing, I don’t care. I’m here for my family, my wife,’” says Mike “Coach Mike G” Guevara, Jrue’s longtime performance coach. 

Lauren gave birth to a healthy baby girl, named Jrue Tyler, in September 2016. And miraculously, the following month, Lauren underwent successful brain surgery. Holiday returned to the court in late November of that year. He excelled despite the harrowing experience he and his family had endured, ultimately receiving a five-year, $126 million extension from the Pelicans. “How are you able to do that with no sleep, with the stressors of emotional just intensity beyond measure, and still be able to stay focused to train, to eat as good as possible, to still be there as a husband and a father?” Guevara says. “I don’t know how people are made like this. … He’s just a special dude. … He’s just different.”

But Jrue’s strength paled in comparison to Lauren’s. Jrue says Lauren’s strength inspired him to keep moving. And he knew that there was nothing that basketball could throw at him that would ever be as challenging as what they endured. That taught him something he still thinks about to this day: “It really showed me how strong and resilient people are,” Holiday says. “And just at the end of it, no matter if the outcome is exactly how you want it, it always somehow works out for the best.” 

When Jrue found out that the Milwaukee Bucks had traded him to the Portland Trail Blazers, he was understandably shocked. Jrue sat in his home in disbelief, after waking up from a nap on that Wednesday afternoon last September, trying to grasp how his life, which had finally felt so stable, so rooted, was now shifting once again.

But this time, a calmness soon washed over him. Previous newsbreaks dwarfed this one. He now viewed life with a wider lens. He knew his purpose was bigger than himself. Bigger than his sport. As long as his family was healthy, he’d be OK. Thinking about the trade, he reflects back on that period in 2016. The tumor. The fear. Sleepless nights of worrying about what would happen to his wife, his daughter.

“I think it helped me prepare for [the trade],” he says. “Life does hit you in different types of ways at different times, and maybe just subconsciously you learn this lesson. … I know some people get down on life … but I think for me, and I don’t know why—maybe it is because of the support of my family, maybe it is because of my faith—but it’s always turned out to be something that I grew from and made me so much stronger.”

Just two years prior, Holiday had been an integral piece of Milwaukee’s championship team, solidifying his place among the NBA’s most formidable stoppers and most respected leaders. He had just completed his third season with the Bucks, a franchise that felt like home. Milwaukee seemed like a place where he could end his career. Contend for more rings. He had been a beloved player in the locker room. A do-anything, give-everything player who spilled his heart out each game. 

But Milwaukee lost in the first round of the playoffs that spring, a disappointing finish for a franchise poised to achieve much more with a prime Giannis Antetokounmpo. The front office decided to shake up its title-winning nucleus, trading defense for offense and replacing Holiday with Damian Lillard. As surprised as Holiday was, the 15-year veteran also knew another truth: Change is routine; change is inevitable. In life and the NBA. “There’s just so many things that are constantly changing,” Holiday says. “You have to always be looking forward.”

Jrue had no choice but to adapt once again. To keep moving. He intimately understood how to be malleable. He had been traded two times prior in his career: from the Sixers to the Pelicans in 2013 and from the Pelicans to the Bucks in 2020. Both of those experiences taught him how to become comfortable while uncomfortable. 

As he processed the initial trade to Portland, Holiday’s mind started to wander, thinking of the more immediate changes off the floor that would inevitably come. Changes he remembers from each of his previous destinations. It’s not just a player who is traded; their family is, too. Their lives, their bonds, their emotions are also uprooted. And at first, it was unclear whether he would stay in Portland or be moved elsewhere. 

He and his family had settled down in Milwaukee. His daughter, Jrue Tyler, and son, Hendrix, had been attending school nearby. “We just finished renovating the house in Milwaukee,” Holiday says. Without much time to pause, he’d have to find a new home and adapt to a new city. It was difficult, staring into the unknown. “No matter where you go,” his wife tried to reassure him, “we’re going to be OK.”

Five days later, the rebuilding Blazers traded Jrue again, this time to the Boston Celtics, one of the Bucks’ biggest Eastern Conference rivals, the same team Jrue made one of the most iconic plays of his career against, when he rejected Marcus Smart at the rim to steal Game 5 in the 2022 Eastern Conference semifinals. Now Holiday would be replacing Smart in Boston’s starting lineup. Change, Holiday realized, was something in which he could find the positive. There was much to feel optimistic about, heading to a title-contending team in Boston rather than to a full-on rebuild in Portland. Shifting his mindset was within his power; he had done it before. “Even though you might not know it’s coming or whatever it is, you can make it through,” Holiday says. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that change is bad. Change, a lot of the time, can be good just depending on how you look at things and your perspective.” 

Without time to wallow, Jrue and his family boarded a plane to Boston. As sobering as it was, he accepted a familiar lesson: Few are spared in this cutthroat league. Change is constant. “It wasn’t his first time going through it,” says his older brother, Justin Holiday, a guard on the Denver Nuggets. Those experiences, Justin says, give you confidence, helping “mold you and put you in that position where you are able to be strong.” Justin has been on 10 teams in 10 years and certainly understands what movement can feel like. “Everything he’s gone through,” Justin continues, “has just helped him from a mental standpoint. Understanding there’s good that comes with the bad and vice versa.”  

Looking at all the talented players already entrenched on the Celtics roster, Jrue knew that he’d have to reinvent himself. He’d have to accept a vastly different role than the one he had been accustomed to. That meant far fewer shots for him, less control. In Milwaukee, he was one of the primary initiators of the offense and one of the team’s top scorers. He was coming off of his first All-Star appearance in a decade. Now he was joining a team where he was seen as the final piece, not a focal point. 

“I knew I was going to like the group,” Holiday says. “I knew that we were going to be good just based off the talent, but I think it took me a while to figure out my role.”

The Celtics, who fell short in the Eastern Conference finals last season, knew they needed something else to break through. After trading Smart for Kristaps Porzingis in a three-team trade, there was a clear fit and need for a 2-guard like Holiday. Holiday didn’t just bring elite defense, but also competent offense and intangibles. In fact, he brought a lot of the same traits that Smart had: playing the right way, doing the little things that impact winning basketball. The Celtics sought his hard-nosed defense. His leadership. His gritty, physical style of play.

Holiday knew that for him to thrive—and for the Celtics to win—he would have to embrace a mentality that few players of his caliber and résumé would: sacrifice personal glory for the betterment of the team. Since the trade, he’s done that wholeheartedly. Despite an uptick in minutes, he’s averaging his fewest points and shots per game since his rookie season in 2009. And he regularly handles the team’s toughest defensive assignments, hounding the most talented players in the league on a nightly basis. He embodies Boston’s ethos of unselfish play. Everyone sacrifices for the greater good. It’s led the Celtics to the best record in the NBA this season, and they’re the favorites to come out of the East.

“Every team is a puzzle,” Holiday says. “And I’m a part of that puzzle. … So whatever the team needs from me: Some nights it might be scoring, some nights it might be shooting corner 3s or being a decoy. It might be setting screens or rebounding. I think that just comes with the type of talent and character that we have on this team.”

Jrue’s new teammates can sense the genuine joy he has from simply being part of something special. On his first day in Boston, Holiday told the group: “I’m here to help in any way.” 

“He came in here very willing, very open-minded, not trying to step on anybody’s toes and just wanting to work,” Al Horford says. “The thing that’s impressed me about him is his work ethic and how he goes about his daily routine and then really just embracing our players, embracing what we had here, and trying to find his way with the group.

“And for a guy of his stature to come in here and be so willing and genuinely care about winning, I feel like that’s contagious,” Horford says. “It puts us all on notice, and he’s somebody that we respect and that we look up to.”

Horford has much in common with Holiday. Both are veterans who have had the accolades and the adulation. Horford made very similar sacrifices to Jrue when he first came to Boston, coming off an All-Star year himself. He took a back seat for the betterment of the team. He and Jrue both know that what matters at this stage in their careers isn’t glitzy but deeply gratifying: leadership. Helping others. Horford noticed how Holiday did just that during the first game of the season, against the New York Knicks. Holiday wasn’t scoring much, but his defense against Julius Randle—and the Knicks’ other top players—made a difference. “His impact [was] felt right away,” Horford says. “He was doing a lot of things that are not going to come on the stats sheet, that are good for the team: making an extra pass when an extra pass needs to be made or covering for us on the defensive end, which he does constantly. … At the end of the day, we won, and that’s all he cares about.”

Even in his 15th season, Holiday continues to have a rare combination of power and grace. He’s physical yet always under control. Intense yet even-keeled. He is sure of who he is, who he wants to become. No longer is Jrue the bright-eyed rookie that he was back when he played for Philadelphia, so green when drafted that the 19-year-old Californian didn’t even own a coat or jacket when he first moved to the East Coast. He’d show up to Sixers practice wearing a T-shirt, and his teammates would laugh, telling him he might catch a cold. As mature as he was, he was a kid at heart. “Jrue was on the plane watching cartoons,” says Aaron McKie, former Sixers assistant coach.

The veterans on the team, such as Willie Green and Andre Iguodala, mentored him. Now, he’s in a similar role himself as a mentor, passing down the wisdom he has learned throughout the years. It’s for reasons like this that Holiday might just be the X factor Boston needs in the playoffs. He’s certainly the key to the team’s defense. 

In a league where not much can be controlled, Jrue has realized he has complete control over one thing: his defense. He controls how hard he slides his feet, how hard he chases his opponent. He fights through screens with such vigor it’s almost surprising when his defender gets a rare slice of daylight. “To continue to do it at his level, he’s always been elite. Defensively, he’s always been one of the best defenders in the league to me,” says Iguodala, who played with Holiday on the Sixers. “When you see a guy guard Kevin Durant, guard Steph Curry, guard Klay Thompson, whoever it is … I don’t know if there’s any other player who can do that in the entire NBA.”

Holiday has found ways to impact winning even on nights when he barely shoots. Sometimes he’ll take only five shots, yet his impact can be felt everywhere. Eight assists. Two blocks. Two steals. He’s “playing free,” says Aaron Holiday, Jrue’s younger brother and a guard on the Houston Rockets. “No matter what’s going on around you, being able to obviously be in your role but also have a free mind and play free. I think he turned the corner [after the trade] pretty fast once he got out there and got comfortable.”

Over time, Jrue says he began to feel more at ease on the court in his new role. “Finding my space,” he says, “and my spaces where I could go out and do the things that the team needed was something that took a little bit of time for me.” He can sense a “cohesiveness” within the team. “Being able to just look to the person next to you and be like, ‘All right, yeah. I do have a good shot, but that person has a better shot.’”

That’s long been in Jrue’s DNA, even as an eighth grader. Much like these days, he preferred to set up his teammates rather than pursue his own opportunities. “He’s a giver,” says J.J. Prince, who coached Holiday in eighth grade and was an assistant coach throughout his high school years.

One game, when Holiday was 13, Holiday stole the ball and soared down the court, dishing the ball to a teammate, who missed. When the team went back to the huddle, Holiday didn’t criticize the teammate. “Hey,” Holiday said instead, “I’m going to steal the ball again. I’m coming right back to you.” Sure enough, Holiday stole the ball again and whipped it to the teammate, who proceeded to make the shot. 

He exhibits that same kind of leadership with his Celtics teammates. Getting to know them better off the floor has only aided that on-court connection. Holiday says he enjoys the simple moments: just being around them in the locker room. Traveling on the plane. Going out to dinner. He especially loves playing a private team trivia game before tipoff, as Celtics players brainstorm random tidbits that have nothing to do with hoops. “You get to think about something other than basketball, but we also are using our brain power, and it’s still competitive and fun,” Holiday says. 

Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens had long envisioned Holiday in a Boston uniform, way before the Celtics’ exit in the 2023 Eastern Conference finals. “Two or three years into my coaching tenure,” Stevens says, “every day he was one of the two, three, four, five guys that we would all talk about constantly.” It was because of Jrue’s makeup: what Stevens calls “elite competitive character.” “When you see somebody doing [the little things] with a constant smile and a selflessness, that has stood out from, really, since I came into the league,” Stevens says. “He’s just special. … I just think it’s a great fit.” 

Stevens didn’t look at last year’s roster and think, “What’s missing?” Rather, he explains: “You look at it and say, ‘What do we have to do to give ourselves the best chance of this year?’” Holiday came to mind. “We’ve been in the fortunate or unfortunate position of being hunted for a long time, and we have not gotten over the hump,” Stevens says. “And so I think that ultimately we realized that you’re going to be that and you haven’t gotten what you ultimately wanted, [so] you better improve. And so it was just a matter of trying to figure out how we can best fit the team together. 

“The whole—my background as a college coach is about fit,” Stevens continues. “It’s about guys working together and bringing their strengths to the table. And we’re lucky because we have a lot of guys that have elite talent. And so then it’s just about who’s going to make sure that we’re bringing out the best in one another. And Jrue’s been an amazing addition in regard to that.”

Despite being at different points in their careers and boasting different personalities, the team members all share a collective-over-individual mentality: “It’s probably as unselfish and selfless a group as I’ve ever been around,” Stevens says.

Holiday possesses a humble confidence—a tricky blend that few exude. He’s somewhat quiet. Even if he isn’t saying anything on the court during practice, those around him notice how quickly his eyes dart from side to side, staring at the floor, intensely focusing on each little detail. “Jrue is still who Jrue is,” Justin says. “He’s going to be that same calm, confident person in every situation.”  

That has come in handy this season, as Jrue has been learning on the fly. He’ll turn 34 this summer, but you wouldn’t know it from watching Celtics games. He’s reportedly already committed to playing for Team USA at the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympic Games. And as of April 1, he’s eligible for a contract extension. But his focus is on the Celtics and helping them achieve their goal. “There are people who can say, ‘Yeah, he has a lot more to him. He could score, I don’t know, 15 more points a game, or he can do this or do that.’ But it’s like I choose to do what’s best for the team,” Holiday says.

What’s best can change each game, each week, each month. But Jrue’s ability to identify what that spark is is why he’s able to fit in so well in any situation. “Everywhere he goes, teammates rally around him,” says Pelicans coach Willie Green, Holiday’s former Sixers teammate. 

According to Stevens, the ease with which Holiday is able to sacrifice comes down to his makeup. “It’s hard for normal people,” Stevens says. “It’s hard for people that are trying to maximize their own experience, but I just think he’s different. He’s unique. And I think that’s special. And we say all the time: Special is unique for a reason. Because not everybody is that way.”

In a sense, Holiday’s entire career has prepared him for difficult moments. To seek the bigger picture. To let change envelop him, sweep him toward new possibilities. The past decade has been filled with change, testing him and his family in ways that they couldn’t have imagined. But Holiday says he’s been able to adapt as well as he has in Boston and to stay positive amid a flurry of change on the court because those off-court experiences prepared him to let go of control. To let go of the way things might have been and embrace what is.

Coming home after a long day of practice, he is reminded of what truly moves him. Jrue Tyler and Hendrix are there, flashing big smiles on their faces. “They run to me and hug on me and love on me,” Holiday says. He loves it. Their energy. How they quickly ask to play with him. Then ask him to use the iPad. “No,” he tells them. “We need to go outside and do something else.” When weather permits, of course. “It gets cold in Boston,” he says with a laugh. 

The next test for Holiday is coming: the playoffs. Change is constant. From one challenge to the next, one series to the next. As good as the Celtics look, they know they will ultimately be judged by what lies ahead, not a successful regular season.

But Holiday is used to these situations. Unlike most of his Celtics teammates, he’s won a championship. And he can help them stay poised when it matters most. “It’s not solely about me,” Holiday says. “It’s ultimately about winning. I feel like we have that mindset of: If we really want to be good, and we want to win, then we do what needs to be done.”

Jrue will have to continue twisting into new shapes and realities later this month. That’s the only way to advance. Enduring change, he has shown, isn’t just about being physically durable. It’s also about being mentally agile. It’s about being open, humble. It’s about being willing to set ego aside and finding ways to fit in even when feeling out of place.

Mirin Fader

Mirin Fader writes long-form, human-interest features on athletes of all sports. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of ‘Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA Champion’ and ‘Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon.’ You can find all of her work at www.mirinfader.com.