Pelicans' Jrue Holiday back this week, coach Alvin Gentry says
— -- NEW ORLEANS -- Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry confirmed Monday that? Jrue Holiday's return to the team is imminent.
Holiday missed the preseason and each game so far this regular season to tend to his wife, former USWNT soccer player Lauren Holiday, as she recovers from the birth of the couple's first child and surgery to remove a benign tumor from the right side of her brain.
"Not anything definite, but it's probably going to be at some stage within the week, for sure," Gentry said. "Maybe within a couple days."
The Pelicans are 2-9 this season, worst in the Western Conference, but the team has said throughout Holiday's absence that there has been no pressure on him to rush back.
"All of the guys realize what he's been through and how tough it's been for him," Gentry said ahead of Monday's matchup with the Boston Celtics. "Not just the fact that he's going through the thing with his wife, but to have a newborn kid also is extremely tough. That's why we wanted him to do it on his terms, when he felt comfortable enough to come back, so he could just play basketball and kind of not worry so much about everything else that's going on. He wasn't going to be able to do that until he was comfortable with his wife and comfortable with his kid."
The Holidays have spent the opening of the season in Raleigh, North Carolina, area near the Duke University medical specialists who handled the surgery for Lauren, a two-time gold medalist and 2015 World Cup winner.
A league source said?Holiday?is in great shape, but the Pelicans are expected to limit his minutes as he works his way back into game condition. The Vertical reported last week that Holiday was expected to return within the week.
Holiday, 26, was limited to a combined 74 games in his first two seasons in New Orleans because of right leg injuries, but he broke through in 2015-16, averaging 16.8 points and six assists with a career-high 19.7 player efficiency rating in 65 games. His season was cut short after he fractured the orbital wall of his right eye during a game, but he did not miss a game because of his right leg, besides planned absences in the first half of the season.
"My family comes before basketball," Holiday told the Times-Picayune in early September. "I'm obviously blessed to play this game and be in the position I am in, but my wife is the most important thing in the world to me. She comes before anything else."
New Orleans plays Wednesday in Orlando, followed by home matchups against the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday and Charlotte Hornets on Saturday.
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