Steinmetz: Warriors should be Ellis’ team when he returns
By: Matt Steinmetz
Special to The Examiner
December 31, 2008
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| Monta’s show: The Warriors have sorely missed Monta Ellis this season and should hand the reigns of the team over to him when he returns from his ankle injury. (AP) |
SAN FRANCISCO — It’s tough to say what made Warriors fans happier over the past few days: Watching their team knock off the defending champion Boston Celtics or seeing guard Monta Ellis sitting on the bench with his teammates on the night that it happened.
There is no doubt now that Ellis is on his way back. He’s smack dab in the middle of two-hour-a-day rehabs and is slowly working toward his return from a left ankle injury suffered in an offseason moped crash.
Maybe he’ll come back in mid-January ... maybe at the end of January ... maybe February. Nobody really knows, but everyone is starting to realize it’s on the way.
What is also unknown is the impact Ellis will make upon his return. But one thing is certain: Stephen Jackson will have a huge role in it.
So much of where the Warriors go after Ellis returns will come down to Jackson. And, truth be told, Ellis’ return is the Warriors’ last and best chance this season to turn 2008-09 into something positive.
When Ellis returns it is imperative that he becomes the team’s go-to guy and No. 1 option. Ellis needs to go right to the head of the class in that department, and it must be Jackson who ushers him there.
Admirable as it might be, Jackson has spent much of this season trying to do too much at the offensive end. Some of it is Jackson’s nature, some of it is trying to make up for Ellis, some of it is being the captain.
If Jackson willingly steps back into a No. 2 role — and there is no indication he won’t — the Warriors will be much better off. So will Jackson, by the way.
It’s no secret that the Warriors are trying to figure out exactly where Corey Maggette and Jamal Crawford fit in. Both are 20-point per game scorers who are limited in other areas and both are used to having the ball in their hands a good portion of the time.
That’s got to be addressed and there is no better time than when Ellis comes back.
The Warriors are Ellis’ team and they need to be. Ellis is the man, and Jackson needs to be his wingman.
With all due respect to Maggette and Crawford, they’ve got to withdraw into role players on the Warriors, because if they don’t, this thing has no shot at working.
Are they going to like it? Probably not. But it’s the only way.
Otherwise, the Warriors are likely to continue down a path where they search from night to night where to go with their offense and whom to try to go through.
Ellis might be young, but he’s got more experience as a Warrior than either Jackson, Maggette or Crawford.
He knows the team and organization as well as anyone on the team, he’s the highest-paid player, and he’s the one — for now, at least — the franchise is building around.
Ellis isn’t going to solve the Warriors’ problems when he comes back. But he can certainly be the catalyst to begin solving them.
But only with Jackson’s help.
Matt Steinmetz is the NBA insider for Warriors telecasts on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. E-mail him at msteinmetz@sfexaminer.com.
