I get the feeling that lots of people are viewing the loss of Monta Ellis for the first four to six weeks as an insurmountable blow to the Warriors' season. Yes, we will be minus our best player (Baron Davis) and arguably second best player (Monta) from a year ago, but it's not as bad as it could be. Monta was set to take over as starting point guard this year, a position he'd never held in the NBA prior or one that comes natural to him. When a player comes back to a team after missing a considerable amount of time to begin a season, they come in at pre-season form when everyone else has already entrenched themselves in their roles with the team.
Picture this... It's December 15th, Monta started basketball related activities two weeks ago, has been practicing with the team for the last week and is ready to come off the bench in his first game of the 2008 season. The team is 9 - 12 after struggling a bit out of the gates, but has started to gel the last few games thanks to more court time together. Marcus Williams is just getting the hang of the point guard role for an uptempo squad and he's starting to find a little bit of his offense.
Now, if you have faith in Monta like I do, you can see him fitting right into this sort of team. Instead of
starting out and having to deal with the growing pains of a new squad trying to find cohesiveness, he steps onto a team that is coming together nicely and slowly but surely becomes the engine that drives it. Many great players have done it—come back from injury and dove into the "best player" role. The question that needs to be answered is — Is he on that level yet?
My gut tells me he is.
With Williams' confidence at an all time high, Monta gets to spend that much more time scoring and not worrying about point guard duties. I'm not saying that Stephen Jackson will be happy or Al Harrington will still be with the team. Only the future knows that. But I do believe his unselfish nature will allow the team to continue it's progress unhindered, and his confidence will enable him to accept a lesser role at first without losing faith in his game or importance to the team. Yes, the Warriors can make it without him to begin with...but will thrive under him in the end.
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