Monta Ellis’ Top 10 Plays As A Warrior

After six seasons in Oakland with the Golden State Warriors, some things have changed: Monta Ellis‘ body art, four coaches and a couple of uniform sets.

Count Ellis’ role as a playmaker as one constant in those seasons.

The guard is many things when he’s on the court, and a share-the-rock model of efficiency is not one of them. You knew that, and efforts by Keith Smart and Mark Jackson to improve his defense didn’t have much of an effect (your turn, Scott Skiles). Trying to play well together with Stephen Curry had as many head-scratching moments as game-changing ones.

But enabled by the frenetic pace former coach Don Nelson preferred from 2006-10, Ellis thrived as a feared scorer who helped prove the recent trend that smaller guards don’t need to only be distributors to find success. He not only would put up points, but he had a habit of making opponents look bad in the process.

He’s eighth in scoring overall in the past four years at 22.6 per game, and his reputation as a gunner is well-earned after being sixth in field-goal attempts per game in that time (and yet measured by how often a team’s play is used by a player, called usage percentage, Ellis is 26th in that span). There’s no hiding it, the Warriors of the Ellis era were never great, going 233-298 in his time in Oakland.

The Bucks know all that going into this trade, which makes us want to watch the Ellis-Brandon Jennings experiment all the more. Here’s what else they know: They’re getting a guard whose top-10 reel is on par with nearly anyone’s in the league.

So now, let’s bring you Ellis’ top-10 highlights of his Golden State career.

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10. Ellis does what so many want to, which is get a block on Blake Griffin. After cheating on defense on his man from the free-throw line, he stalks Griffin on a baseline jumper before putting the ball into the seats.

9. David Lee hits Ellis on a backdoor cut for the big dunk against the Bulls. Malone-to-Stockton it is not and never was, but nonetheless you’ll see this connection again later.

8. Some might take the space between the hoop as wasted space, but Ellis wasn’t daunted against the Mavericks. Instead, he went up and over the backboard, and got the and-one.

7. Lull the defender to sleep, split two Bucks at the rim on a reverse. Rinse, repeat.

6. MarShon Brooks isn’t the only Net to be victimized on this one play by Ellis, who blocks Brooks’ shot from behind before finishing with an alley-oop on the break from Klay Thompson. Pretty cool, Monta.

5a. Ellis beat the Suns with his fadeaway J from the baseline here on Feb. 22. He lets Suns coach Alvin Gentry know it, too.

5b. On Jan. 19, 2011, Ellis beat the Pacers after going iso on Brandon Rush in the final 15 seconds, then making good on the clearout with his near-buzzer-beater jumper.

4. Two dribbles, from the hash mark, in your face. At least that’s what I imagine Ellis said to Baron Davis here.

3. Off the nifty no-look pass from David Lee, Ellis does a 360-degree reverse layup on Toronto. One of the only moves I’m pretty sure NBA 2K12 didn’t have in it.

2. When Ellis went for 48 on the Thunder Feb. 7, it not only was his career high but the second-highest points in a game by Warrior since he was drafted. In fact, of their 10 highest-scoring games since 2005-06, Ellis has seven of them. We don’t think you actually doubted his scoring volume, but we wanted to give you some numbers just in case.

1. Is this any way to treat a former teammate (Keyword: former — of course it’s OK)? Ellis catches Raymond Felton napping and then Ronny Turiaf all by his lonesome in the paint. It’s not personal, Ronny, it’s just business.

What will be your favorite memory of Ellis with Golden State?

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