Pelicans' Gentry: Jrue Holiday to begin season limited to 15 minutes per game

The New Orleans Pelicans under newly hired head coach Alvin Gentry will be selective in managing their players' workloads.

For one, Gentry will be extremely cautious with point guard Jrue Holiday, who has struggled to stay healthy over the past two seasons following repeated battles with leg injuries.

This season, Holiday will play with a strict minutes restriction, reports Brett Dawson of the New Orleans Advocate.

Holiday will also be held from playing in back-to-backs, Gentry told John Reid of NOLA.com.

These latest comments are in line with what Holiday and Pelicans general manager Dell Demps have said on the matter.

"We're gonna be smart and cautious with him," Demps told Dawson. "One of the good things about this team is we have depth, so we're not gonna ask Jrue to come out and play 35, 40 minutes a game."

Demps feels that his team has the depth to withstand Holiday's lessened workload. The combination of Tyreke Evans and Norris Cole managed to push New Orleans to the postseason during Holiday's absence last season.

"We feel like we're really strong in the guard position," Demps said. "So we're gonna be smart and cautious with him - not only now, through training camp, at the start of the season - and really get a gauge of where he is."

Still, for Holiday, this latest development must be disappointing, as the 25-year-old seems perpetually limited by his injury woes. He's expected to be cleared for training camp but it seems that a full recovery is still far, far away.

Holiday appeared in a grand total of 77 games for the Pelicans over the last two seasons after coming over in a trade involving two draft picks which yielded Nerlens Noel and Elfrid Payton.

The year prior, while playing with the Philadelphia 76ers, Holiday played 78 games and made the All-Star Game as a 22-year-old.

Holiday averaged 14.8 points, 3.4 rebounds, 6.9 assists, and 1.6 steals per game last season.