What's wrong with Monta

i remember an interview he had two years ago talking about how speed was the key to his success. this year, a lot of his moves that would have been and1’s then are being called charges. maybe he lost his speed after the accident and bulked up to compensate. or maybe he bulked up and slowed down because of it.

the hope is that the loss of speed is not permanent. as much as i commend him for putting in the time to bulk up, he needs to get his body to match his game.

The “bulk down”, as in “down in Los Angeles playing for the Clippers” has had an impact. Monta’s particular game hasn’t lended itself to fewer break opportunities and the ball in his hands more often. Don’t interpret this to be a "we should have done everything and anything to keep Baron, but I do think that on the court no one misses him more than Monta.

But he actually has played pretty well this season, his defense has improved although it still is below average and there are times when he drives and kicks and makes his teammates better. But when has he sneaked out and blown by everyone on the break and slammed one down this year like he did 2 years ago?? I haven’t seen it, and when he tries to blow by his defenders he ends up making contact instead of just getting passed them. Don’t forget he had knee surgery at the end of high school, and now he had the ankle surgery all on the same leg, which is his left leg which he jumps off of and he doesn’t get up close to as high as he used to which is why some of his drives get blocked.

LMAO, sorry im sure it was a typo
I been trying to get my sveltness back but age is a mofo.

First off Monta isn’t to happy right now so thats playing into it but Nellie has him trying to run the point which is not something he will ever be fully comfortable with. He has a scorers mentality without the handles or vision of a true point. He looks fine for what he’s being asked to do. It would be different if he only had to play the 2 but having to run point is gonna bring down his efficiency because he’s not a pg. Unfortunately Monta and Curry will never be a good enough befensive backcourt for us to be legit title contenders. Not because they can’t or don’t play D but it’s the lack of size that can’t be made up for. Iverson had Snow who was a defensive PG whose offense was a bonus. Curry or Monta will never have that defensive ability because they are offensive players. They’ll give the effort but it unfortunately won’t be enough. And remember when Iverson took Philly to the finals the east was weak. There were 2 other 50 win teams in the east while there were 7 in the west. The west has some very strong backcourts nowadays. You got Kobe and Fisher, Nash and JRich, Bdidy and Gordon, Kidd and Terry, Parker and Ginobli, Billups and Earl Smith III, Miller and Roy. We cant expect Curry and Monta to be able to guard them. They’ll get eatin alive.

Good question, good post… nice to talk about Monta on the court, rather than off. It does seem like he’s bulked up a bit, and that may indeed be slowing him down on offense. Also agree that it seems like it may be helping him on defense, and that it is thus a potentially worthwhile tradeoff, if he develops other moves to complement his drives.

I’d add another possible variable as to his struggles, which is the fact that he’s playing the point. He’s played it in spot minutes in previous seasons, of course, but there’s more playmaking weight on his shoulders than there has ever been before. And while Monta is doing a good job of trying to play the point, I do think it’s taken a toll on his own scoring efficiency.

One of Monta’s greatest attributes in ‘07-’08, in addition to his speed and shooting stroke, was his decisiveness. He had brilliantly quick instincts for finding an opening… before the other team even realized he was shooting, he was already at the hoop or nailing a jumper. That decisiveness isn’t there right now, because he’s scanning options for other guys, not just for himself. There seems to be more of a pause, however brief, before he makes decisions in the halfcourt. Will that pause disappear as he acclimates to the position, allowing him to pair his old scoring efficiency with improved playmaking? Hopefully. But it may be that he won’t again be the brilliant scorer he was two years ago until he’s absolved of all playmaking duties, by himself and his coach, and can just focusing on scoring again.

One more possibility, one I hesitate to bring up: it is possible that Monta had a fluky-good shooting year in ‘07-’08 that he might never equal again, no matter how much he weighs or what position he plays. He shot .545 on two-pointers that year… that’s a level of efficiency that very few guards ever reach, especially guards as small as Monta. Nash had a year shooting that well, Calderon did, Jason Terry’s gotten close to that level… but no NBA guard in recent years has consistently scored that well inside the arc. Monta could be good — really, really good — and still never shoot like that again. It may behoove us to temper our expectations a tiny bit.

1)monta was given a job he was not ready for.
and
2)Don nelson sucks at coaching

Monta Ellis will be a dominate guard in this league if he is put in the right team with the right scenario. When the Warriors had Baron Davis, Ellis was able to thrive and flourish.

I am by no means an expert on the subject, so I’ll just offer up a possibility (that you can feel free to shut down).

Does adding muscle and strength change your jump shot? Do you have to adjust the power with which you shoot the ball? Cause that could be the reason his jump shot is not as money anymore. And if that’s the case, I would say to just give it time.

As far as the speed, I don’t know. I haven’t been able to watch too many Warriors games this year, and the ones I do watch his speed doesn’t seem that off, but I am watching blurry, lagging screens and can’t really tell. But I hope if he really did lose a step that it is just a temporary set back.

it’s the injury. sure a bunch of other stuff is going on around him that don’t help, but it’s the injury. He’s not the same player. He’s hardly bulked up. Most of that is natural just maturing, and getting a little bigger is better. You lose some explosion when yeah you hurt yourself like he did, but mainly it’s just the being in a cast and having your ankle immobilized for such a long time.

the injury has mental affects too. Sometimes you compensate for or guard the injury, even if he’s over that, just the fact that he couldn’t play basketball for such a long time can mess with your head and change your game.

The only comment I have on Monta is he can’t dribble adequately with his left hand. I noticed this the first game of the season, and I wasn’t sure how big of an impact it was going to have…but it’s definitely limited his offensive options. Seriously, watch him play, he goes right every time because he can’t dribble left well enough to do much more than one dribble off a crossover with it.