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http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Monta-Ellis-289/\

LOL best case scenario= haha

Interesting article. Thought the writer di a pretty fair assessment.

Just goes to show how hard Monta has worked to get his game to the level that he has.

DX missed the boat. He was clearly special from his first SL game, so it must have been clear in high school too.

I'd have to guess that DX writer only saw the McDonald's game and drew a lot of conclusions from a small sample. That said, you don't get a second chance to make a first impressions. A player sometimes only gets one look from a talent evaluator, or a scout and can be written off or penciled in based on that breif look.

Good for us though. If Monta had a great McDonalds game we wouldn't have gotten him.

P.S. I think Souvlaki wrote that report.

Fluff piece.... I doubt the website has time to really check into anyone.

I remember all the stories. Bad attitude... hung over for that game and the workouts.. bad knees, can't pass.. it would have been pretty easy to write a piece on him based on just that.

Steve Francis would have been pretty good if he hadn't gone to the Knicks or lost his confidence.

I'm sure that there were a lot of others who would have made the same assessments, otherwise he wouldn't have been picked 40th. There's always a few guys like this who are missed on, but not too many. Proabably a 1 in 1000 chance that he would have been this good. He was right about his defense apparently (I've hear a number of you complaining about that all season long). If I recall correctly, he was pretty cocky (another point that DX made) when he first came to training camp (was also a real chucker as I recall). Of course he mellowed out and became very humble so I don't think he was far off. He also did point out his potential.

I don't remember him ever being cocky early on. He played hard in practice, occasionally showing up the rest of the team if they weren't going 100%. "Young fella came to play" was a JRich quote about him from Monta's first training camp in Hawaii.

I would say he's getting more cocky now. He's more likely to direct his teammates (which he does a lot now); more likely to complain to the refs. He is asserting himself more.

Not only is more cocky (confident). He seems to not want to play defense anymore, unlike his rookie (even last year). Just look at all those open 3s he gave up because he forgot to play his guy (Jamison sickness).

I would say confident now, not cocky. I remember reading some comments regarding his first practices indicating he was a big chucker (wasn't making to many of them at that time). He lacked confidence last year especially in the playoffs and early on this year.

marthafokker wrote:Not only is more cocky (confident). He seems to not want to play defense anymore, unlike his rookie (even last year). Just look at all those open 3s he gave up because he forgot to play his guy (Jamison sickness).

Tay's about 3rd or 4th in blown defensive assignments... people just love to turn the cold shoulder on all of Baron and Jax's blown assignments, and Buke? Well he makes near minimum so that's ok... Tay makes a little bit more but even when its not his assignment, its his fault

510Reggae wrote:-= original quote snipped =-





Tay's about 3rd or 4th in blown defensive assignments... people just love to turn the cold shoulder on all of Baron and Jax's blown assignments, and Buke? Well he makes near minimum so that's ok... Tay makes a little bit more but even when its not his assignment, its his fault

Not his fault? Try the out of bounce play. He just look at the 3 point shooter. Just like Baron looking at CP3 big 3 in the 4th yesterday.

Its okay now because he makes little. But at $10Mil next year, he better get the Kevin Martin treatment Dubbs have been making fun of.

I want a Pop screaming on Tony Parker type on these defenseless arses... and I am talking about the whole Dubbs roster. Unfortunely, Nellie would rather scream at POB on the bench instead...

If you want to count single plays, start with the captains and end with the bench... its amazing to me that people focus on Tay's defensive ability since he's our best offensive option... when nearly most of the team has been far worse all season

Dude, you have been championing Monta's defense all year, most of the time blaming the pick & roll for his mistakes and that it is the big man's (or lack there of) fault. The fact of the matter is that Monta has been bad at all types of defense this year except for a few moments. He hasn't been able to keep his man in front of him at all (even guys like Ridnour that you would think he'd be able to guard), he has done a bad job on pick & roll's and he loses his guy off the ball far too much. Most of this I believe is because of a lack of focus on that end of the floor.

Now I agree every player has these problems (Buike is the worse off the ball defender always leaving his man wide open at the 3 pt line, Baron can't keep anyone in front of him neither), however I feel most of usare hard on Monta on this end because:

1. He has regressed as an on the ball defender
2. He is young and has the ability to be a very good defender
3. He is our best player so there is no reason to be easy on him

I think we all know who Baron is by now, he is almost 30 and isn't going to change his ways. Monta is 22 and is becoming a worse defender. We all want to see him succeed and get better, and sometimes you have to criticize to get better results. Just pretending like its someone else's fault or pointing out how there are other bad defenders on the team is not helpful. Monta is an amazing talent who could be such a great all-around player that we can't just glaze over his weaknesses or he might not ever improve on them.

Monta has worked hard and become a great offensive player. Now I'd like to see him put forth the same effort on the defensive side of the ball.

He's regressed as an on ball defender? Wow

He just kept Paul in front of him... like literally 2 days ago. What Tay's weak at is positional defending... He doesn't know how to guard space. When he has to think on defense, you can pretty much see the hamster wheel spinning...

To give him the discredit this board does is pretty much hilarious... apparently we all recognize that Nelson's an awful defensive coach except for when he criticized Tay ("He needs to fight through those screens to guard his man")... yeah, we'll put our 6'4 175 lb PG and have him try and throw himself through PF/Cs of the league... that makes much more sense than an effective temporary switch. Isn't the point of smallball to be quick enough to pull off a move like that?

He's actually a quick closing-out type, but if we had a coach that focused on D at all, we could break him of doing that stupid clapping after the shot is released... streetball garbage He needs to take another step in and go straight up..

And even the positional defending is easily fixable... Tay sags way more than Baron does for help defense, and thats when he usually leaves a man open... that's why I'm 110% confused on why Nelson loves putting Tay on shooters when his on-ball defense is actually his strength...

I remember a few textbook plays he had on CP3... let CP get the first step in, closed out quickly and sealed CP3 to the baseline, twice. Twice he had to jack up a turnaround 15 footer on the baseline and neither went in... and the next possession, it was back to Baron on CP3

He might have stepped up a few times on Chris Paul, but overall his defense has been garbage, and its from a lack of focus. I try to see the silver lining like you do (one of the few things you seem to see the silver lining on) but he has regressed as an on the ball defender, period. 90% of last game he was not on Paul because of this, and I have seen it in pretty much every game. He used to hound the man bringing the ball up the court, now he lets him sprint pass him half the time. I don't know if he is taking too many cues from Baron defensively, but this is something that I feel we should be able to be critical of him about because he could be so much better.

You need to stop drinking the Monta D Kool-Aid

yehyeh82 wrote:He might have stepped up a few times on Chris Paul, but overall his defense has been garbage, and its from a lack of focus. I try to see the silver lining like you do (one of the few things you seem to see the silver lining on) but he has regressed as an on the ball defender, period. 90% of last game he was not on Paul because of this, and I have seen it in pretty much every game. He used to hound the man bringing the ball up the court, now he lets him sprint pass him half the time. I don't know if he is taking too many cues from Baron defensively, but this is something that I feel we should be able to be critical of him about because he could be so much better.

You need to stop drinking the Monta D Kool-Aid

He played that hounding D on a traditional style team... Monty's team. Another story for another time.

If he played that type of D all the time here, he'd be winded by halftime... there's been no regression of his on ball D at all, in fact he's pretty good when we put him on their main ballhandler...

Lumping in Tay with Baron is just flat out wrong... whereas Baron's lazy on all aspects of D, Monta just can't guard space and is long enough to close out on SGs... there's no reason at this point for him not to be guarding the PG / primary ballhandler every game.

Please, 510, save what little credibility you have. I'm starting to feel bad for you.

You know it's OK for a player to be really good on offense and horrible on defense. Don't worry, the Warriors aren't going to let him walk. Your boy Nelly doesn't care about defense, that's why Monta is a starter.

souvlaki 510 is right.monta was really good at d his rookie year

Souvlaki wrote:Please, 510, save what little credibility you have. I'm starting to feel bad for you.

You know it's OK for a player to be really good on offense and horrible on defense. Don't worry, the Warriors aren't going to let him walk. Your boy Nelly doesn't care about defense, that's why Monta is a starter.

Should Monta not be starting in this league now?

Should Bukie?

I think you both have dug a little too deep into your ideological foxholes on this debate. 510 won't acknowlege any warts on Monta and Laki won't own up to any of Bukie's weaknesses. You've both tried to bash each other over the head on this player comparison to the point where everything you both say on either player is tainted with (holding my nose as I say it) agenda driven hyperbole.

Neither guy is a particularly good defender at this juncture, but they both have single tools that can help us.

Monta creates turnovers. He steals the ball, and that equals easy points - something we DESPERATELY need. But he doesn't stick to the guy in front of him anymore. He didn't see that rewarded, so he's gone with what the coach rewards. Nellie plays the guys who steal the ball - blaming Baron is a red herring.

Bukie will body up scorers. He doesn't trust/or get the dig & blitz defensive concept (neither did Monta last year - when he played better Man D BTW) and he was punished/banished to the bench specifically for failing to contribute to the defensive concept mid season. But as our legs have withered and turnover creation has gotten scare, Bukie's willingness to put his chest on a man and a hand in a face has a lot more value now that we're not raping bad players night in and night out. Bukie's D didn't change, Nellie has been adapting to tired legs.

Monta is still playing D the way we did mid season when everyone could move and run (because he still has legs) but we don't really have that defensive concept anymore. Now we just kind of get torched all over the floor. It would be a good move for Monta to switch gears and get back to dogging the ballhandler since everyone else has been all but helpless, but in his defense, that's exactly what this coach has NOT emphasised.