Every week, we will be looking at a common NBA myth and try to prove or disprove it. Today, we will be looking at the following myth:
“Monta Ellis & Stephen Curry Can’t Play Together”
Background
Whether or not Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry can play together has been a topic of conversation for Golden State fans for quite a while. Even Monta Ellis himself has been flip flopping on the issue. Last offseason, Ellis said they couldn’t play together:
-Q: You wouldn’t want to give it a shot?
-ELLIS: I just want to win. That’s… not going to win that way.
-Q: Why not?
-ELLIS: It’s different when you’re trying to compare me and Stephen, when you’re trying to go back to when me and BD were playing, it’s a different situation. You’ve got a nine-year veteran who’s been in the game, who understands the game, knows how to play the game, and he’s a big body… You can’t put two small guys out there and try to play the 1 and the 2 when you’ve got big 2 guards in the league. You just can’t do it. OK, yes, we’re going to move up and down fast, but eventually the game is going to slow down. You can’t do it.
This offseason, he thinks they can:
“When I made that comment, I wasn’t knocking him,” Ellis told AOL FanHouse. “I wasn’t bashing him. It was based off of what me and the Warriors were going through at the time. It had nothing to do with him. ”Like I told him this summer, we can do it. We did it last year. I see now that I have to play the two (shooting guard). I have to play the bigger guards, and I’m cool with that.”
Evidence
Offensively
The offensive end is where this duo can really excel. Both players can shoot and be a threat on the offensive end, and that makes it tough for defense. In fact, if you visit BasketballValue.com, you can see that just about every lineup that includes Ellis and Curry had an Offensive Rating of over 100 (the only one that didn’t featured Vladimir Radmanovic and Mikki Moore, which probably hurt on the offensive end).
The success of the duo on the offensive end all depends Stephen Curry’s ability to play point guard. If Curry can play the position well, Monta Ellis slides into a shooting guard role, something that suits him much better. Maybe more importantly, with Curry as the primary ball handler it keeps Monta Ellis from dominating the basketball. Ellis can now let Curry create scoring opportunities for him instead of trying to create them himself:
Here, Stephen Curry makes the catch, and the defense shifts in position. There is a mistake in the rotation and Monta Ellis is left wide open. Curry quickly gets the ball to him and Ellis knocks down the three. Now, what makes this noteworthy is that if Ellis was still bringing the ball up, all eyes would be on him, and he would never get a catch or shoot opportunity like this.
Another way the Warriors are successful on the offensive end is when they start running stuff away from Ellis, allowing him to be a quick swing option. Here, the Warriors are running a pick and roll with Curry as the ball handler. The defense shifts to play the pick and roll, dropping off of Ellis. Curry hits Ellis who is wide open and he knocks down the three.
Also, Steph Curry being the primary ball handler provides Ellis with opportunities to make the catch and attack the basket (something he does very well in my opinion). Here, Curry gets into the paint, drawing attention from the defense (including Ellis’ man). Curry kicks the ball out to Ellis who has his man closing out on him hard. Ellis uses the hard close out to drive by his man and finish in the paint.
I really think that the change in Monta Ellis’ opinion from last offseason to this one is due to the fact he realized how easy it can be for him to score now. Instead of working hard as the ballhandler trying to create his own shots. He can sit back and let Steph Curry create chances for him. The numbers (from the great site HoopData.com) support this as well.
From 16 feet out, Ellis had a higher percentage of makes assisted in 2010 vs. 2009. From 16-23 feet, 31.9% of his makes were assisted (vs. 25.8% in 2009), and from the three point line 67.5% of his makes were assisted (vs. 37.5% in 2009 – a huge jump). It is no surprise that Ellis’ shooting percentage from each spot went up as well (37% from 16-23 feet vs. 36% in 2009 – 33.8% from three vs. 30.8% in 2009).
On the flip side, the scoring threat of Monta Ellis allows Steph Curry to get some easy looks as well.
Here, Monta Ellis makes the catch, drives, and kicks it out to Stephen Curry for the three point shot. Watch it again and notice that Curry’s man is on his way to cover him, but hesitates a second to defend Ellis’ drive.
Here, Monta Ellis has the basketball at the top of the key and as Steph Curry makes a cut off of a screen down low, he is able to get it to Curry for the layup. The reason is because of all the attention that Ellis draws. All the help defenders have their eyes on Ellis, waiting for him to attack, and they lose track of Curry who cuts right into the middle of the paint.
Monta Ellis actually saw his assist rate go up last year (from 14.73 to 15.70), and I think a lot of that had to do with Stephen Curry being on the court with him at the same time.
Defensively
While there is no question that Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry works on the offensive end, there is a legitimate concern on the defensive end. A lot of it has to do with size. Both Ellis and Curry are considered small for the shooting guard position, but since they are on the court at the same time, one of them has to cover shooting guards. The Warriors’ staff decided that Ellis would be the one covering two guards. Opposing teams have really been able to use this size advantage by taking Ellis down into the post. According to Synergy, Ellis was posted up 10.4% of the time he was on the court. Opponents shot 49.4% when posting Ellis up, registering a PPP of 0.95 (ranking Ellis 215th in the league defensively):
The second clip really shows the problem of Curry and Ellis on the court together. When playing teams like the Lakers, Ellis is going to be stuck covering guys like Kobe Bryant. Kobe immediately takes Ellis into the post and gets an easy dunk out of it.
Despite the concerns on the defensive end, it isn’t easy to evaluate the Warriors defensively because of the style of play they had. There are some numbers that say Ellis and Curry can work defensively if they have the correct units on the court. Again, using BasketballValue.com you see that two of the Warriors best defensive units had Steph Curry and Monta Ellis on the court at the same time.
The 5-man unit of Curry, Ellis, Morrow, Radmanovic, and Randolph had a defensive rating 84.44 in in 43.30 minutes. Meanwhile the 5-man unit of Curry, Ellis, Martin, Maggette, and Biedrins registered a defensive rating of 83.67 in 45.73 minutes. Sure, this could be due to small sample sizes since these units didn’t even see a whole game’s worth of minutes (for reference these units were the 10th and 7th most played units respectively).
However, these two units might be able to tell us how to build around Curry and Ellis defensively and have success. One way would be to play small-ish (like in the first unit that had Randolph as the 5), and rotate like crazy. The second would be to play a big guy like Biedrins behind Curry and Ellis, where he can help on post ups and drives.
Conclusion
Looking at the evidence, I can’t necessarily bust this myth. I do think that both Ellis and Curry help each other on the offensive end, but defensively I am not too sure. There is some evidence that says units with Curry and Ellis can be successful on the defensive end, but it is really hard to say for sure just based on the style of play the Warriors have had over the years.
