Holiday stepped up when needed. Will he back for a third season with the Rockets?
I think a lot of us were surprised when the Houston Rockets re-signed Aaron Holiday this last offseason to a two-year, $9.5 million contract to come back to the team as a bench point guard. The Rockets had just drafted Reed Sheppard to potentially be their point guard of the future, and many thought Holiday was going to move on somewhere with more playing time.
But Sheppard came out of the gates slowly, and that gave Holiday some unexpected playing time, as he ended up appearing in 62 games this past season, averaging 12.8 minutes per night. Holiday averaged 5.5 points and 1.3 assists per game and remained one of the team’s most effective three-point shooters, hitting 39.8 percent from beyond the arc and 43.7 percent from the field. He hit 72 threes on the season. Pretty impressive for a sometimes rotation guy.
He filled in with 25 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 assists in a February 13 loss to the Golden State Warriors, had 20 points and 2 assists in a March 8 win over the New Orleans Pelicans, and had 16 points and 4 assists in a late-season loss to the L.A. Clippers. He also saw action — albeit mostly minimal — in three of Houston’s playoff games.
Holiday has a club option on his contract for the 2025-2026 season, so it’s TBD if he’s coming back next year. Obviously, the team wants Sheppard to take the next step, and to hear Rafael Stone talk, he has all the faith in the world that he will. Which would make Holiday’s minutes tough to come by. But the Rockets might do wise to keep Holiday on the roster as backup veteran ball handler.
We keep mentioning this, but it’s tough to get a gauge on who stays from the back end of the bench, because it depends on what the Rockets do with their incoming draft picks. At the moment, there are two coming. But it’s nice that Houston has that flexibility with Holiday’s contract in that they can easily decide to bring him back or let him walk to a club with more playing time.
He’s been a solid veteran presence on the team for the past two seasons. It remains to be seen whether Rafael Stone picks up his option for a third.