Is Monta Ellis Set To Be a Fantasy Bust This Season?
By Ben Gibson
Monta Ellis might be the odd-man out in the Indiana Pacers lineup this season, setting him up to be a fantasy bust.
We’ve talked plenty about how Monta Ellis and Jeff Teague will (or won’t) work together in the Indiana Pacers backcourt, but that problem could be even worse for one other team.
Your fantasy basketball team.
Chris Towers of CBS Sports see Ellis as a bust this season.
"Does Ellis even fit on this Pacers’ team? It was awkward last season, as his scoring dipped to 13.8 points per game, it’s lowest level since he was a rookie, but at least Ellis was able to up his assist average to 4.7 per game to make up for it at least a little. However, that was playing next to George Hill, who is much more of a passive, off-ball point guard than Jeff Teague, his new backcourt mate. If Ellis has to cede even more ballhandling duties to Teague, how is he going to make up for it this year? My bet is, he takes another step backwards, and might even be an ideal trade candidate for Indiana, given his awkward fit between Teague and Paul George. Let someone else be drawn in by Monta’s name and his former gawdy numbers."
Though the defense has often been a bigger concern, Ellis’ role on offense if a difficult one to access with the addition of Teague. And when we are talking about fantasy, that’s your biggest concern.
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Ellis has his worse offensive season of his career last year — as far as raw numbers go — but he also played the best defense. That doesn’t help you much in fantasy, though.
As Towers points out, the offensive issues might be even worse this season with Teague compared to last season considering George Hill’s style of play was passive at times. The phrase “Aggressive George Hill™” existed for a reason.
Unlike Hill, Ellis has never been much of a 3-point shooter. Last season, Hill shot 40.8% from beyond the arc even though he was taking a backseat to Ellis most of the time.
That makes it harder on Ellis as he doesn’t appear to have that sort of support role where he’s effect like we saw with Hill.
Ellis, on the other hand, made 30.9% of his attempts from deep, nearly 10% worse than Hill. His career average is 31.3%, so I doubt he’s going to substantially improve.
Monta Ellis Career Stats | PointAfter
Does Ellis have value in fantasy? Yes. But you’re likely to have to draft him at a point higher than his actual value thanks to the “Have It All” era of his career.
If you want him on your fantasy team, you need to be patient.
There aren’t any current Pacers players listed in Towers’ post on fantasy sleepers, but you can find at least two former Indiana players, as well as someone they drafted and then traded for Thaddeus Young.
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