No moves made by the Portland Trail Blazers this summer have been as splashy and headline-grabbing as trading for veteran guard Jrue Holiday, then signing fellow Olympian Damian Lillard just weeks later. Acquiring two former All-Stars has been like a sweet drink of water to Portland fans who have been laboring and sweating through years of rebuilding with young, largely nameless players.

Already, before Holiday has suited up for a single game and with Lillard still a year out because of a torn Achilles injury, the Blazers faithful are imagining pairing the two titans to form a supercharged backcourt. But what would that look like? That’s the subject of today’s Blazer’s Edge Mailbag.

Dave,

My question is Jrue Holiday a point guard or a shooting guard? Can he play he and Dame play together in the back court and will they fit together?

Andrew

The answer to the first part of your question depends on which side of the floor you’re asking about.

Things are changing a bit for NBA offenses. The idea of an established point guard floor general who directs every play is starting to go by the wayside. Most teams don’t run specific plays anymore. They set up puzzles for the defense and then read the floor, finding the best pass or shot available. If it doesn’t work, they reset and try again.

In this environment it’s less helpful to define positions than to ask whether a player is more comfortable initiating the offense or being on the receiving end. This doesn’t just apply to guards. Other players, particularly star-level scorers, can be offense-initiators even if they don’t play the point guard position technically or traditionally.

For the Blazers, Scoot Henderson, Damian Lillard, and Deni Avdija are the “main character” type players in the offense. They operate best when the ball starts in their hands. Although they can also pass and make plays happen, Shaedon Sharpe, Toumani Camara, and Jerami Grant are good examples of players who operate better when they get the ball later in offensive sets, often as the endpoint.

Talking in theoretical terms, Holiday can do either. He’s a good catch-and-shoot candidate. He’s stepped back from the starting, bigger-scoring role he played just a couple seasons ago. He doesn’t have to take center stage in order to be effective.

There’s no doubt that his natural game tends towards ball control, though. The Jrue Holiday you saw last season can play off-ball. The Jrue Holiday you love from earlier in his career captained the game much more.

The answer on offense depends on which Holiday you expect. Jrue can probably be a decent role player alongside more ball-dominant teammates. But if you want Jrue Holiday, he needs to handle the ball.

Defense is a different story. Once upon a time Holiday was a game-changing defender. He can still do it in smaller bursts, but he’s not your everyday, “send him against the best opponent” guy anymore. Age has caught up to him. That means he’ll be most effective against opposing point guards. There will be matchups where Holiday can guard shooting guards too, but once you start stacking him up against bigger players you’re going to lose something most nights. That’s a tough puzzle to solve when envisioning Holiday and Lillard playing together.

The answer to your question is, “Yes, they can take the floor at the same time.” That’s not because one is a point guard and the other a shooting guard, but because they’re both decade-long veterans with talent who will be able to make it work together for the time they overlap. But that’s not going to be 30 minutes a game and it’s not going to be as co-starters. It’s also going to work best on offense.

Once you start talking big minutes and prime-level opposition, you have to start worrying about that defensive end. Where do you hide Dame and who does Jrue guard? Most nights you’re not going to be able to come up with satisfactory answers to both questions simultaneously. That’s why their time together will probably be targeted and limited unless something odd happens to the roster over the next couple years.

There’s actually a Part Two to this answer! We’ll have that for you tomorrow. In the meantime, thanks for the question! You can all send yours to blazersub@gmail.com and we’ll try to answer as many as we can.