The meta conversations of Warriors fans and pundits continue. I’m responding to the Worriers blog semi-responding to Tim Kawakami’s blog. Eventually we’ll all have solved the Warriors problems, only to have Cohan sell the team to Calgary. The topic is Monta’s crappy +/- and its attributions.
I come here not to bury Monta Ellis, but instead to praise his past productivity. Let’s go back a short hop temporally and a long leap mentally. Let’s see what Monta accomplished in 2007-2008 for the best Warriors team this decade:
Net +4.3
With Monta on the floor, the 48 win Warriors were a marginally better defensive team (-.8), and an improved offensive squad (+3.5). While Ellis hurt them in rebounding, he more than made up for it with great scoring efficiency. His 58% TS (stands for ‘True Shooting’, not ‘Tough Shit, we’re fining you 3 millie for a moped crash) from that year dwarfs his modern middling-to-mediocre 52.5%. On the defensive end, he acquitted himself decently for a young player, usually drawing assignments on guys who were actually his size.
Oh, and then there’s the matter of turnovers. Question: What would Monta’s 07-08 per game turnovers, multiplied by two be? Answer: Not as much as his current per game TO amount (2.1 to 4.3). Question: Is that the nerdiest thing you’ve ever asked yourself? Answer: Sadly, no. Anyway, I’m not even going to reference the pace/minute adjusted stats because the 4.3 pretty much tells the story. Adjusting for minutes is like putting a paint job on a totaled moped.
I’m not really of that fluffy Ric Bucher School of ‘this guy makes that guy better.’ I’ve tended to believe that players only marginally overlap (unless you play with Iverson). But dammit if it doesn’t seem Monta misses Baron Davis. Let’s move away from stats for a second and conjure up an old moving picture of Baron dribbling a few feet above the key. Davis drives and this pulls the defense a few paces towards him. After two dribbles he whips the ball towards Ellis, who’s crouching on the three point line (at the point that’s equidistant from top-of-the-key and the baseline). As Monta’s defender moves towards the action, Ellis simply blows past him in the opposite direction. Simple, effective, and thinking about it nearly makes me cry. Off the ball is where Ellis is meant to play.
As I recover from that nostalgia I’ll add that Baron could guard twos, allowing Monta to matchup on ones (Ya, ya, ya, we’ve heard that a million times). Baron may not be Monta’s basketball soul mate-the one player meant for Ellis to play with. I loved BDiddy, but he was never close to All-NBA material and there are other big point guards in the sea. Could I interest you in nearly over-the-hill types like Andre Miller and Jason Kidd? Maybe we can tank and snag my guy Evan Turner, or even luck out with the Great Wall of John? I’m not sure what the solution is, but I believe we’re wasting a good player’s prime every game the problem goes unsolved.
After the last game, Ellis said, ‘I can’t do it by myself. I can’t win a game by myself.’ He’s right about that, but perhaps he shouldn’t be trying to win it by himself. Perhaps he should be reaping the benefits of a new facilitator, even a mediocre one. With Ellis dribbling out the clock, we’re more likely to see a high-speed turnover than a lethal layup.
This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 6:52 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Agreed on all counts… Monta makes a great bullet, but a kinda crappy gun.
Like you, I don’t know what the solution is. I’m pretty sure it’s not Stephen Curry, but at least putting the ball in Curry’s hands to start every play would free Monta up to do his scoring thing. I think a big problem here is that Monta fancies himself a playmaker, and that Nellie humoring him in this delusion. He will not be a real asset again until everybody in the organization, including Monta, agrees that he’s a shooting guard.
Not that I’d trust the current regime to do it properly, but you have to at least consider trading the guy. If we can’t ever seem to find the piece that fits next to Monta, maybe Monta is the piece we should get rid of. His counting stats are big and his SportsCenter appearances are common, so you might be able to trade him for some value right now. That won’t happen, and maybe it shouldn’t… but this is a dicey, enigmatic type of player to hitch your franchise to.
Thanks for writing. Not sure why he fancies himself a playmaker, I was in the camp of people who thought he should get a chance to be one. Well, he got it, and he tends to miss open cutters and lose the ball out of bounds.
Yep — a worthwhile experiment, but the results of that experiment have come in, and they ain’t pretty.
It wouldn’t be as big of a deal if Nellie weren’t so enamored with the idea of an offensive auteur that could create all over the floor. In looking over Nellie’s history, it’s been a damn long time since he coached without a pretty brilliant playmaker, whether it be Timmy, Nash or Baron. Since Baron left, he’s tried to cast Jack, Monta and Curry as a brilliant playmaker, and even seems to think Randolph has potential in that department. It’s getting sort of absurd.
There are teams that function just fine without an offensive maestro — we have a lot of guys that can do some things. Some consistent plays and rotations would work for us. But sadly, I’m guessing we’ll just have to watch Monta do his bad Baron impression for at least the rest of the year.
I used to think that passing PGs were overrated, and that a team could function just fine without one (the pre Kidd Mavs for example). Not sure how I feel about that premise right now, but I do think there has to be a better system than Nellie’s (understatement). I don’t think Randolph can be the creator Nellie wants, but I’m intrigued by his ability to dribble past his man. Not saying that AR is our PG of the future, just that a few plays of Randolph driving and kicking to Ellis wouldn’t hurt the cause. I’d also add that the Warriors might be wise to trade Ellis…if I trusted management to get equal value.