Monta Ellis Live Interview

At around 3 min and 30 seconds Monta talks about him and Curry. Some interesting stuff.

"...He's a great player coming out of college. He's working hard in training camp. I don't have anything against him. People try to make it seem like I have a problem with him.... My problem is not with him..."

"It's all positive. He's a great player. Love him as a teammate. And we're gonna get everything together."

over 2 years ago bogeydead4 8 comments 1 recs |

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Oooh, I was just about to post this

by IQofaWarrior on Sep 29, 2009 11:33 PM PDT reply actions

what's your take on it?

by bogeydead4 on Sep 29, 2009 11:40 PM PDT up reply actions

My take

That was a hard interview to listen to, because he’s usually supplies shallow or canned or vague answers. Monta certainly seemed very guarded when giving his answers. I mean, he usually is, but it felt more noticeable in this interview. Either that, or it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Monta interview.

But from the bits that are worth interpreting, Monta seems to have an understanding of the team’s identity and purpose. When Jim asked Monta about needing to be the big scorer for the team to win, Monta says that they have a lot of scorers, and they need to find the open guy. So Monta didn’t put the scoring on himself. Also, “We have to play defense and get stops. We are a FAST BREAK team. But it starts on defense.” He said that pretty emphatically, more than just a canned answer, so it sounds like the team identity has already been defined, including defense, and he’s going to lead it.

Same thing later on when Monta talks about not shooting 3s. He talks about how there are other 3 pt shooters. He said he can drive in to finish or kick out to the 3 pt shooter. So again, it sounds like he’s thinking about the game plan as a whole team, and not just himself. When Monta talked about kicking out to other 3 pt shooters, it made me think of Tony Parker driving in and kicking out to Bruce Bowen for the corner 3.

by IQofaWarrior on Sep 29, 2009 11:58 PM PDT up reply actions

+1

Monta will never be a smooth interview, and a lot of his answers were pretty boilerplate stuff, but I did like his body language and emphasis here.

I’ll go so far as to say this: if Monta actually does focus on defense, both putting the effort in himself and expecting others to, we’ll finish above .500. I really think it’s that important to our chances. We’ll have above-average offense and decent rebounding… our defense will be bad, but it doesn’t have to be the worst defense in the league. If we get game, energetic defense from Monta all year, it won’t be the worst defense in the league, and probably won’t be bottom five… the result will be a winning season (though the playoffs still might be too much to ask).

Will Monta put in that effort? No way to know, but I wouldn’t rule it out. If he was just planning to phone it in and collect his points and paychecks, he probably wouldn’t be going out of his way to bring up defense as he does here. He seemed more mature and focused here than he has in the past. Nice to see.

by onlxn on Sep 30, 2009 12:54 AM PDT up reply actions

Things I liked from the interview

I liked that he mentioned defense a couple of times and its importance. I liked that he says he doesn’t need to be a 3 pt shooter because there are enough 3 pt shooters that he can kick out to when he’s driving in. Personally, I don’t know why Monta started taking 3s last season when he came back. He was soooo much better with his midrange game the season before.

by IQofaWarrior on Sep 29, 2009 11:40 PM PDT reply actions

If he can shoot the 3

then the defenders have to respect him there and it becomes harder to defend him – he could pull up for a 3 or go drive or go for a mid range. The defender is kept honest.

by mosdl on Sep 30, 2009 8:40 AM PDT up reply actions

Loved it.

He sounds like a mature leader. Once Randolph gets a little older with his fire and passion we can have two great leaders on this team. I think he will score 21- 25 ppg this year.

Rookie: "Why did you bench me?"
Nellie: "Your a rookie"

by dubzfan on Sep 29, 2009 11:47 PM PDT reply actions

Very happy with this interview

Monta doesn’t seem to be buying in to any of the negativity floating around. Rather, he is doing his best to focus on what will win basketball games; playing defense and playing as a team.

by toddaverth on Sep 30, 2009 2:37 AM PDT reply actions