Jrue Holiday Had A Hilarious Reaction To Sitting In The Sweaty Seat In The Press Room PJ Tucker Left Him

Media availability in the NBA has gone through a rather large change this season as gone are the locker room scrums after games and on-court scrums after practices and shootarounds. Players instead came to a designated room where they sat in at a table in front of a camera for Zoom availability, talking to reporters through the screen rather than crowded in front of them.

In the Finals, there are now select, vaccinated media in the room, but also still folks there virtually. As such the podium set-up remains and players come in and out, all sitting in the same spot to talk to the assembled press. It’s a pretty efficient set-up but comes with one pitfall for the players that might not have been considered for the post-practice availabilities: sweaty seats.

After games, players have typically showered and changed before they come talk to the media, so this isn’t an issue, but after practice they stroll in fresh off the court. That means, for some, they come in very sweaty and leave a, well, uncomfortable spot for the next person to come into. Jrue Holiday was on the wrong end of that when he arrived at the podium on Tuesday and put his hand down to ease himself onto the seat and immediately asked if someone had been there before him. Upon learning it was PJ Tucker, all he could say is “makes sense.”

I really do love that as soon as he found out it was Tucker he went from borderline concerned about how much sweat someone left behind to completely unsurprised. His explanation that he’ll be alright cause he’s about to go shower anyways is great, but him closing it with “no, he was workin, he was workin,” is the best part. Jrue’s not trying to sweat shame PJ, but it certainly startled him when he first touched that “extremely” wet chair. Maybe going forward we can start getting an extra chair to rotate in and out while the other gets wiped down.