What Do We Make of Monta Ellis?

Nine games into his Pacers career, Monta Ellis remains a mystery. The “objective” stats aren’t pretty. He’s only averaging 11.3 points a game, his lowest average since his rookie season back in 2005-06. Monta has shot a catastrophic 23 percent from 3-point range this year, and he’s only shooting 36 percent from the field overall – both career lows. On the season, the Pacers have a NetRtg of -2.9 with him on the floor; they’ve been much better with him off the floor, posting a very respectable NetRtg of 8.1 without him. But have there been any positives?

The distinction between what your eyes subjectively tell you and what the numbers objectively show you is always a tough one to reconcile when watching basketball. In many ways, the new era of SportVU cameras and advanced stats has ushered us into a sports world that is more black and white than ever before. Is Rudy Gobert the best rim protector in basketball? Of course. Look at the Player Tracking data. Is Stephen Curry the greatest shooter we’ve ever seen? Well, we actually don’t need stats for that…but, yes, he is.

And yet, as helpful as all of these numbers can be in the proper context, sports isn’t always fun when things are so black and white. Are there qualities and attributes that stats have been unable to quantify? What do I do when my eyes are telling me something that seems so different from what the numbers are screaming?

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• 2 positives, 3 negatives from first week of Indiana Pacers basketball
• Should Isaiah Jackson’s days with Indiana Pacers be numbered?

To be fair to Monta, and the Pacers in general, the numbers look a little different if you ignore the first several games of the season.* After a tough, opening stretch against four possible playoff teams (who knows if Memphis is in a funk or if they’ve declined yet) including an apocalyptic second half against the Utah Jazz, Indiana has appeared to right the ship a little, going 4-1 since. Over that span, the Pacers have played better with Monta on the floor, posting a NetRtg of 5.6. That number has dropped to 3.7 with him off the floor. It’s unclear how much of that improvement is due to Monta’s increased familiarity with the offense, and how much is due to the fact that Paul George has turned into a destroyer over that same span. Over that same stretch, Monta’s stat line has remained largely stagnant compared to his season averages. He has bumped up his assist total to nearly six a game, but his scoring and shooting have remained poor.

*Chris Towers from CBS told me on twitter yesterday that splitting an already small nine game sample size into even smaller parts was not useful, and he has a point. Ignoring four games to focus on five reeks of “confirmation bias.” Still, this year’s Pacers season is unique. Paul George came back from a career-threatening leg injury; Ellis, himself, joined a new team after undergoing knee surgery this summer; Ian Mahinmi moved into the starting lineup; and the Pacers, after playing “big” with Roy Hibbert and David West for the last several years have begun to transition into playing more “spread” lineups with CJ Miles and Chase Budinger guarding post players.

By nearly every objective statistical metric, Monta Ellis has been a disappointment; some would probably go so far as to say he’s been bad. But my eyes…they keep telling me a slightly different story. Oddly, the Pacers have been pretty good defensively with Monta all year, holding opponents to less than a point per possession with him on the floor. Ellis has really played well on that end all season, hustling around picks, drawing charges, and taking intelligent gambles into passing lanes.

And as bad as he’s been offensively, he still finds a way to do things like this.

Statistically, the only thing that Monta Ellis did on this basketball play was miss a shot at the rim. In actuality, this was an important play (Monta created a shot) at an important part (the game was tied) of an important game (the Pacers were winless at the time) for Indiana.

After walking the ball up the court, George Hill set up the Pacers offense with only 16 seconds left on the shot clock. After a fruitless rotation and a lot of standing, Ellis received the ball on the left wing facing away from the basket with only seven seconds left on the clock. The Pacers were about to waste yet another possession. With only five seconds to play, the floor looked like this.

That’s an absolute mess. The spacing is poor, the pick is coming too late, and there’s really no place to go. Yet, Monta beats his defender with a quick crossover and gets into the lane where Jared Sullinger comes out to meet him. Monta absorbs the contact and incredibly gets the ball up onto the glass, nearly making the tough runner. Jordan Hill, who was being defended by Sullinger on the play, was able to swoop in and lay in the easy put back. Ellis turned nothing into something, and this is the exact kind of play that makes Pacers fans giddy.

While Indiana has been blessed with some exciting basketball over the past twenty years, they’ve probably only had one real “creator” in that entire span – Jalen Rose. Mark Jackson and Jamaal Tinsley could create for others. Jermaine O’Neal could create for himself from the low or high post. But the Pacers have almost never had a guy that could turn nothing into something with only five seconds on the clock. Reggie Miller and Danny Granger primarily scored by playing off the ball. Paul George has improved, but he’s still far too loose with the ball, both as a passer and as a handler to become a team’s full-time ball handler for more than a possession or two.

Monta is the first guy the Pacers have had since Jalen that can salvage these types of possessions for the Pacers, and no matter what the stats say, that means something tangible that is hard to quantify.

For his part, Ellis needs to start shooting better and turning the ball over less. His usage rate is the lowest its been since he was a rookie, and he’s obviously still trying to figure out how to fit in with this squad; but if he can’t even get to 40 percent in his first season, that $11 million contract is going to start looking worse and worse as he ages. It’s been encouraging to see Ellis become a better distributor and give the Pacers great effort on the defensive end. Good players find ways to impact the game when their shots aren’t falling. Still, Indiana brought him in for his offense. Larry Bird has long sought to bring in a creator, and the Pacers need Monta to have it all on that end.