Before Stephen Curry was the franchise player of the Golden State Warriors, Monta Ellis was the man in the Bay Area. After being selected by them in the second round of the 2005 NBA Draft, Ellis was the Most Improved Player in the league in 2006-07, and followed it up by averaging 22.7 points, 4.8 assists and 4.2 rebounds on 47.1 shooting while playing 39.3 minutes over the next four seasons.
Along with Curry, who debuted by Ellis' fifth season with the team, they were a top scoring tandem in the league. However, by Curry's third season, Ellis was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks in exchange for Andrew Bogut in a shocking transaction.
While the team won a championship and made two Finals trips with Bogut as the starting center and Ellis' replacement, Klay Thompson, fitting nicely with Curry, the move didn't make sense to many in the short term.
Bogut suffered some gruesome injuries in his time in Milwaukee, and was never the same player that was selected first overall in the same draft class as Ellis, who at the time was the most popular player in Golden State, and their best player. Using that criteria, when he goes on Tony Allen and Zach Randolph's "Out the Mud" podcast and compares his trade to Luka Dončić being traded from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers one year removed from making the Finals, it might seem like a one-to-one comparison. But it's not.
Luka Dončić and Monta Ellis are not the same
The Dončić and Ellis move can only be compared in one front: both moves were surprising. There were no rumors, no trade discussions, no rift between the front office and player, no problems with the coaching staff nor any teammate, nada. The moves just happened. However, that's where the comparisons end. Sure, while both players were beloved in their respective cities, Luka's popularity is in a different stratosphere because he's from another country, he's one of the 10 best players in the NBA, and was playing for a team that, before him, was centered on another fellow international player (Dirk Nowitzki).
Even the moves themselves aren't remotely close to one another. The Ellis one, while surprising, you could make an argument at the time to it making sense. Curry did struggle with ankle injuries, but when he was healthy he showed promise: he averaged 22.7 points, 7.8 assists, 5.4 rebounds and 2.0 steals on 47.2 percent shooting and 44.4 percent on 3s over the last 32 games of his rookie season, and followed it up with 18.6 points per outing on 44.2 percent from beyond the arc and leading the league in free throw percentage at 93.4 in his sophomore campaign.
In acquiring Bogut, the Warriors rounded out their starting lineup, gave Curry more of a runway as the go-to-option, and gave the starting shooting guard spot to rookie Klay Thompson, who shot 46.4 percent on 3s over the first 38 games of the 2011-12 season before he became a starter, and could be a better fit defensively. While the optics weren't the best, the Warriors had the pieces in place to substitute Ellis, having already seen the ceiling a team led by him could reach and betting to try something new.
With Ellis leading the charge as the starter, the team went over .500 twice in five seasons, and only made the playoffs once. Not a great ceiling, even without the power of hindsight. With Luka, on the other hand, the Mavericks had made the playoffs in four of his six seasons, the Western Conference Finals twice, and were one season removed from making it to Game 5 of the NBA Finals against one of the best teams assembled in recent memory, the Boston Celtics.
In making the move, Dallas traded away the franchise player that led them to their most successful period in over a decade. And as if that weren't worse, they didn't have any suitable replacements for him, because there's no replacing what he does, and acquired a big man in Anthony Davis, a position they already had in abundance (Dereck Lively II, Daniel Gafford, P.J. Washington).
Curiously enough, it's not the first time someone has compared both these deals, as Mavericks CEO Rick Welts previously did the same. What's fascinating is that no one points to the fact that Curry was there to replace Ellis along with a young team, while the Mavericks have an older supporting cast led by Kyrie Irving, someone who in the past hasn't had success leading teams on deep playoff runs as the first option.
And, even more blatantly, that the Warriors would be willing to do whatever it took to succeed, while the Mavericks have a general manager and ownership group that was ok with alienating a player that was on the path of being the best in franchise history, and didn't want to spend the big bucks to keep the best possible team.