Monta Ellis compares historically to… Kevin Johnson and George Gervin
Basketball is harder than baseball to compare great players–the style of the game changes so much from era to era, there are 10 players who can touch the ball at any moment and are dependent on each other to perform or be stopped, and the sizes and skill-sets of players are so varied.
OK, we could do baseball steroid jokes here but I’ll leave that for many other times.
Monta Ellis is forcing me to do this, however. He’s doing special stuff and I am not the only one searching for some historical comparison. Who the heck does he remind us of? What’s his top-end career projection for the Warriors or whoever?
When I’ve typed Ellis-related blog items in the recent past, I’ve come up with: Sleepy Floyd, George Gervin, Allen Iverson, Kobe Bryant (not really, but a play here or there), maybe Nate Archibald.
Others come up with other names. That’s all fair. Maybe Ellis is comparable to nobody, and that’s fair, too. But I always try to get a fix on a blooming player’s potential future by lining him up with some historical semi-twin.
But other than the stylistic comparisons, what about the statistics? Can we do a Baseball-Reference.com-style comparable chart to try to find somebody or a few somebodys who have had stat-runs like Ellis?
It’s not easy. He’s so young and obviously his stats are moving in a huge curve upward, so it’s a moving target. But this is the time when it’s fun to try to peg him, knowing we can be terribly wrong makes it more fun…
I only spent a few hours on this, so it’s not anything I’m claiming as comprehensive, but I did do some research, admittedly based on subjective areas of my memory with subjective rulings.
My conclusion: If we assume Ellis is growing and growing, the future prime stat lines I think he most compares to are… George Gervin, the Ice Man himself, and Kevin Johnson.
Now it’s tricky with a lot of these guys: At Ellis’ current age, Gervin, for instance, was in the ABA scoring crazy; KJ was 1+ year out of Cal; Bernard King was missing time due to substance abuse… that sort of thing is tough to align with Ellis, who is already in his third NBA season.
So I’m just taking some numbers and laying the spread sheet over what I think Ellis might do to finish this year and over the next few… and it’s Gervin and KJ that hit the mark best.
Let’s run the lines (acknowledging that Gervin is 4 inches taller and KJ a little shorter than Monta)…
* Gervin, 21 season: …… 23.4 scoring avg, 48.5% FG. (1973-74)
* KJohnson at 22: ……….. 20.4 scoring avg, 50.5% FG. (1988-89)
* Ellis at 22 …………………. 18.7 scoring avg, 53.2% FG. (this year)
* Gervin quirks:
-Never made more than 32 3-ptrs in a single season; had a four-year FG% run of 54.4, 53.6, 54.1, 52.8, played at a very high level through his early 30s.
* KJ quirks:
-Played 4 yrs of college (Gervin played 2, Ellis 0); 12.2 asst/avg his 22-yr-old season, started getting hurt around his 25-yr-old season later and never quite was the same, though he stayed in the league.
* Ellis quirks:
-Shot 27.2% from 3pt last year, if you remove 3pt-shooting from last year’s stats, would’ve shot over 50%; if you shoot over 50% before age 23, good likelihood you will shoot over 50% for your career; only has taken 35 3-pt attempts this season; low career asst-totals (3.2).
So I did a little estimating on Ellis’ career compared to what we know about Gervin and KJ:
* Gervin career: …………………. 26.1 scoring avg, 51.1% FG.
* KJ career: ……………………….. 17.9 scoring avg, 49.3% FG.
* Ellis projected career: …….. 24.5 scoring avg, 52.0% FG. (somewhere in between on the scoring, above Gervin on the FG%, hard to say on the longevity)
I can’t exactly tell you how I got to those Ellis totals, other than I looked at a bunch of other guys and Ellis’ early FG% stats were better than most of them. So I gave him a nice projected total.
I’m not giving you projected assist or rebound totals because we just don’t know where his career’s going to go–early in his career, he has been asked to score, so we have an idea on his abilities there.
I also liked the stylistic comparisons to Gervin and KJ… You think of Gervin as a long-bomber, but that’s wrong–he never shot that many “3s.” He got his points in transition, “the finger roll,” and in the mid-range at incredible angles. Just like Ellis.
KJ was an open-court dart, just like Ellis, and didn’t shoot the “3″ much or well, just like Ellis, and had his struggles on defense against bigger shooters, just like Ellis.
But KJ was much more of a play-maker for his teammates. Ellis will never be that kind of passer, I think we can tell that already.
I wonder if KJ’s brittleness and quick disappearance as a major player once the legs wore down is any omen for Ellis, who has gotten dinged up a lot in his early NBA life.
The only specific conclusion I’m prepared to make is that Ellis is one of the few guys other than Kobe-LeBron-Carmelo-AI you can circle for a potential scoring title at some point in his career. (Gervin won 4 NBA scoring titles.)
Ellis is going to approximate Gervin’s scoring level for a prime period maybe in two or three years–from about 24 to 27 years old–and the premium will be on keeping Ellis healthy for longer than that.
Ellis’ size limits him three ways–more likely to get hurt, theoretically easier to defend near the rim, must maintain his speed to keep his edge on bigger players (that’s the very tough one for little guards).
Ellis’ size helps him in a few ways–tougher to guard on the perimeter, less crashing around on defense. (By the way, his defense is right there with Gervin’s–not good. If his defense and passing skills get better, Ellis will become an All-League player in a flash. He’s already more than half-way there.)
But other than Kevin Durant, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, I don’t see a lot of players around Ellis’ age group who can be put down for a 28-point season average at some point in their careers–once Kobe and Iverson slow down.
Maybe O.J. Mayo and a few others in college, maybe some International players not yet here. But that’s a big level to predict. Ellis doing it here and now for a month-long span is a much better predictor than anything in college or Europe.
I think we can say that Ellis, if he remains healthy, safely projects to a 27 to 30-pt season average at some point in his prime. (Gervin went 27.2/29.6/33.1/27.1 in his four-year prime run. Different, looser NBA then? Yep, but that’s the style the Warriors play now.)
Plus, I’ll say this for my Gervin/KJ comparables for Ellis. It’s hard to find high-scoring guards/wing-finishers who shoot near or better than 50%. Ellis is one.
I’m sure more are out there, but are there any more whose styles fit closely to Ellis?
Here are a few I checked out and discarded…
* Sleepy Floyd had good FG% numbers early in his career (but not as good as Ellis’), when Floyd was just becoming a mainstay for the Warriors, but they fell off precipitously as he got into his late-20s. I don’t think the same will happen to Ellis.
* Baron Davis career FG%: 41.2%.
* Allen Iverson career FG%: 42.4%.
* Nate Archibald career FG%: 46.7%. Quite short career–only three prime seasons before a leg injury in his late-20s. The smaller the player, the shorter the projected career. We’ll see how long Iverson goes–he’s 32.
* Bernard King had great FG% numbers (51.8% career) but I just thought he was too dissimilar to Ellis as a player to put in here.
* Tony Parker has very similiar numbers to Ellis at a similar age (Parker is 26 now with a 48.6% career FG), but he’s only a career 15.9 scorer and I think Ellis go zooming past him in that category in no time.
I realize the Spurs’ style forces a limited number of shots, and maybe once Duncan is gone Parker’s numbers will go up… but that won’t be for a while and we really don’t know how that will affect Parker. For instance, his FG% could go way down.
* Sidney Moncrief fits a lot of the stat line (50.2% career FG), but he was only a 15.6 point career scorer and was much more of a defense/ rebounding type 1980s bad ass guard. Faded when he hit 30.
* This has nothing to do with Ellis, but since I was looking up FG%: Rick Barry career FG%? 44.9%. Much lower than I would’ve expected.
You got any good comparisons? I’m sure there are plenty of them out there.
I think the KJ comparison is right on. Obviously, one’s a point and one’s a shooting guard, but when I watch Ellis play and run the floor, I think KJ.
Phil Smith
He looks to me like a skinny Dwyane Wade. Quick to the rim, great finisher, great jump shooter. They both just know how to put the ball in the hoop, and their athleticism makes it look so easy. On another level, they are two of the most exciting players in the league to watch. What do you think?
keep it up TK. Love your stuff homeslicers. Monta is Monta, like the wise, mumblitus man said himself. Feel lucky to be able to watch him grow.
He’s easily the best W now and is a pleasure to watch… and I’be been watching the Ws since they came to San Francisco.
I think he’s incomparable to other players … and unstoppable. Just too fast, at least right now.
Let’s hope he stays healthy and retains his speed… and the opposition doesn’t find a weakness. He should be an All Star next year.
Actually Kawakami, Ellis has shown tremendous improvement/ability as a passer this season and I believe that while he is a scorer, he can definitely fill the point guard role with another year of development. In fact, if Baron opts out I believe that Ellis will be just fine.
On that note, if Baron does opt out, Ellis, Buki, Jackson, BW, Beans is a great young lineup that will be awesome for years to come. Marco will be in there too, but I think he will be a great sixth man like a Manu in San Antonio.
I really believe that Ellis is the cornerstone for the future. The Gilbert Arenas that never was. More important than anyone and everyone.
OakFoSho
One more thing. Ellis has been asked to do one two things this year, Score and Rebound. He is doing both of those wonderfully, and passing well on top of it. His turnovers are down as well. I think if asked to fill the point, Ellis will do just fine.
OakFoSho
I wouldn’t be too unhappy with a youth movement either. I know Nelson wants to win now (who doesn’t?) but I think we just gotta give our young players a chance to grow and develop. I want Monta to get stronger but I don’t want that to happen at the expense of his speed. He is just so much fun to watch!!
He reminds me a lot Jerry West. He was very accurate with a fast release on his mid range jumper but could go by you if you played him to close. On this one, however, Jerry has the decided edge.
George Gervin may have some statistical similarities to Ellis, but that’s about it, imo. Gervin was not a superior athlete, which I believe Ellis (with his speed and hops, to be), and he did not have the type of handle that allowed him to blow by players in the blink of an eye. He did have a mid-range game, similar to Ellis, but he got his shots off in a far different manner than Ellis. Clean footwork, great head-fakes, and a fade-away jumper that was smooth like butter. Ellis has got a silkly jumper, too, but he creates space due to his quickness, which causes players to have to play off him or respect his jab-step fakes. Ellis plays at a far faster tempo, too.
KJ definitely makes a good comparison, but his PG skills simply put him on a different tier. Despite the fact that he was a tremendous scoring guard, he also had the skills of a true PG. Not to demean Ellis, but KJ was a pretty cerebral player, too. Ellis is smarter than some give him credit for, but he plays primarily on instinct and god-given athletic ability.
I thought about this comparison long and hard, and the guy that I think might compare closest to Ellis, stylistically, might be Calvin Murphy. Yes, Murphy was much smaller and , if you totally buy TK’s projections, not nearly as productive.. but he was a jittrbug a la Ellis who could score on the drive, but could also stop on a dime, and pop-off a beautiful 12′ jumper. Murphy was never a true PG, although his size pre-destined him to that position, but he was capable enough to get his assists when he needed to. As he grew older, he grew wiser as a player, but one thing never changed: when he was on the court, he always brought energy and excitement to the floor.
I think Ellis has the potential to have even a better overall career than Murphy did, and that’s saying something, considering that Murphy is in the Hall of Fame. Once Baron is gone, this team belongs to Monta.
Gus Williams — “The Wizard”
Montana is sick. know why you can’t compare different eras? the great ones come along and they pick up a little of everything from the greats along the way. His burst is unbelievable(Iverson like). He finishes like Gervin/Drexler with that up and under move that we haven’t seen since the 80’s. reliable jumper like Ricky Pierce(another bad ass guard). he hits that jumper almost everytime like it’s a genetic disposition. Humble like Joe Dumars. quiet swagger like Clide Drexler. the only thing I still will wonder… does he makes players around him better?
I think yes, but by making former castoffs legitimate leaders or is it their leadership that’s responsible? He makes THOSE guys believe. BD hasn’t missed a game possibly b/c Mississippi Lightnin’ has taken his place on insane forays to the hoop(although the layup on nash reminds us the playoffs are at stake). Jax can look to Monta for inspiration on a cool hand. he’s has soaked up everything from Baron with admiration. they’ve protected them and reminded him from the mistakes they’d made before, that kept them from being no-brainer all-stars. that has helped chemistry with this transition, not to mentioned killin’ BD in practice and still being lil brotha. member when Boom Digg first got traded…and they started winning? monta was watching closer than all of us. how valuable for a rookie to witness. and BD been nothing short of a phenominal mentor. those sick hops? playing 1on1 with j-rich the last couple years helped. he learned a good work ethic from his family of course, but j-rich couldn’t have been a better example at professionalism in a tough situation and humble when things got good…then got traded. we’ve seen this kid grow and here on the precipice of becoming the MAN. Baron coast and we still win? got to thank the situation getting good for him to be able to blossom. youth movement sounds good, but it would be great to see BD stay(piling on after an all-star snub?), play his contract out then take a salary feasable to stay alongside Ellis ‘n Jax(and Big Al for that matter, let Al post nellie…it’s better than the uncomfortable possesions when MP tries to do his best monta’ circa ‘05 bad turnover impression…wait he was doing that back in then as well, but not broke out like Ellis). Let’s see in the playoffs…keep this team together(minus MP of course, and unless davis for stoudemire)…biggest heart in the league…Montana is sick!
Yes, Monta has improved dramatically this year. I wonder if they can give the most improved player to the same guy two years in a row?
Monta reminds me more of Andrew Toney because he hits big shots when you need them the most. Also like Toney you can go to Monta 7 or 8 times in a row late in a game. Toney was so good at this that the Celtic fans gave him the nickname “The Boston Strangler”.
Style wise, Kevin Johnson is a great call. Tony Parker also has a similar style in how he attacks the rim although they finish differently. I don’t like the D-Wade comparison because Wade is significantly stronger going to the rim and likes to shoot off balance both driving and with his fake “you shoved me” fall-a-side jumper.
Monta, ,despite some really unique and improvised shots (and unlike Wade) almost always keeps his body control very tight and compact, more so than you saw from KJ or see in Parker. Plus, with the point guard skills of those guys are thrown in, it doesn’t quite work.
Another guy that fits the general bill, particularly when comparing visual styles is Chris Jackson (Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf). Same compact controlled body style. Remember when CJ was killing guys hitting the mid-range jumper? Of course he fell off pretty fast, was never as quick as Monta, or shot as high a percentage and wasn’t the rebounder that Monta has become.
In the end, the unique elements of Monta’s game that are going to throw off any comparison are he’s not quite the distributor of the point guards, shoots a higher field goal percentage that just about anyone, and rebounds phenomenally for a small guy all while being quick as lighting. He’s ultimately incomparable.
BTW, I’d be careful about trying to project how good Ellis will get. At one point Flip Murray was being projected to greatness.
As for Ellis living off “god given talent” that’s hogwash. He doesn’t just blow by guys on speed alone, he attacks defenders based on the holes in their footwork and the purposely setting guys up so that he can take advantage when a hole in their foot work is exposed.
Monta to me is somewhere between KJ and Iverson. I think he is a more explosive scorer than KJ and less of a gunner than Iverson. I know many think if Baron’s goes that Monta can grow into being a point guard. I don’t see that happening. Monta does not have the innate skills, he’s a scorer just like Iverson. Point guard isn’t something you can grow into, it’s just something you are. I watched KJ, Kidd and Nash play in college and they were already what they were. Monta is growing into being Monta and there’s really no comparison to anyone else.
I would say Monta is muck faster than KJ and has more upside to his game. KJ was a much better ball handler than Monta is currently and superior floor general.
Monta reminds me of…. Monta Ellis. He has a unique blend of quickness and consistency in his mid-range game. I am now surprised when he doesn’t make the 18-footer. If he can improve his defense and ball handling skill, I think he can be a perennial All-Star player.
Like his And 1 Campaign asks, Who is Monta Ellis? I think us Warrior fans are lucky to see him grow into his own.
I never really liked this game, of saying “player X reminds me of player Y.” I’ve heard people do it a lot, and an unfortunate side-effect of this has racial undertones; we never say some white player (Steve Nash) reminds me of some black player (Oscar Robertson). As such, I like to avoid this whenever possible.
All I can say is that I really like Monta. I’m so glad he plays for GS. And I hope the Warriors can afford to keep him. As has been said over and over, between Monta and Andres, and possibly BD, this is going to be an expensive summer that reminds me of…
Well, it’s going to be unprecedented; that’s what it reminds me of.
Hey, did anyone else hear about the Sacramento Royal Court Dancers “controversy”? There’s really only one “bad” picture in the bunch. Still, if I were one of them, I’d be pretty mad that the photographer decided to make a few bucks on the side, without consent.
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/714546.html
One of the photos at http://www.withleather.com really IS pretty racy, so be careful when you look.
My take: The Kings have the sleaziest, sluttiest cheerleading squad in American professional sports. Their routines really do go over the top. I like attractive women as much as the next guy, but I’ve seen some of their routines and felt the urge to look away. They’re way closer to being strippers than the Warriors cheerleaders are. So I guess those pictures don’t really surprise me.
Looks like I need to get myself to a Kings game…
Kidding! (mostly)
Once you get past the silicon enhancements, the two hours worth of makeup, the fake navel piercings, the 1D personality, the conversations about TV shows I don’t watch, clothing designers I don’t know and the shopping malls I’ve never, ever wanted to visit; well there’s not much left.
Of course getting to that point can still be fun…
Monta is an original from the deep South, but yeah, he has an uncanny resemblance to Andrew Toney, THE BOSTON STRANGLER, the killer, who will kill you with his shots in the 4th quarter. Toney was also responsible for the death of Nelson’s Bucks in the playoffs ( of course together with Dr. J, Steve Mix and Bobby Jones ).
i think a better comparison would have been jesus. minus the long hair, of course.
I keep thinking of Iverson just because for both of them the minute they lose their speed they will lose their specialness. As Jordan slowed down, he was able to rely on his size and strength and become a post up guard. Kobe will be able to do the same. Amazing that at 32 Iverson is still doing what he does, so if Monta can follow suit I say sign him to whatever price he wants.
Very nice call on the Gervin comparison. The most amazing thing about Monta is how smooth and in control his game is while moving at a such a fast pace.