Cleveland Cavaliers center Shaquille O'Neal was sitting in his locker after Monday's victory over the Golden State Warriors discussing the game, and out of nowhere, O'Neal proclaimed Warriors guard Monta Ellis the seventh-best guard in the game.
O'Neal is known for outlandish rhetoric, so a skeptical reporter asked the well-traveled O'Neal, a self-proclaimed "student of the game," to name the six guards he places before Ellis.
"Kobe, LeBron, D-Wade, Roy, and one more, that cat from Sacramento, Tyreke Evans," O'Neal said.
Never mind that that's only five. O'Neal, after all, said he once made 1,600 minus 800 minus 200 on his SAT. So we'll cut him some slack.
The point is that even without Shaq's unsolicited knighting, Ellis now has arrived among the upper echelon of his contemporaries ... and very few know anything about him.
When the last update of All-Star voting by the fans was announced, Ellis was not even among the top 10 guards in the West, even though he is sixth in the league in scoring at 26.2 points a game, only four-tenths of a point behind Miami's Wade.
It doesn't help, of course, that Ellis is playing for a perennially bad team that has garnered more headlines for its rather quirky personnel decisions and personality conflicts than any on-court activity.
The Warriors have not had a representative at the All-Star game in 12 seasons. Their last All-Star? Latrell Sprewell.
Ellis seems to be deserving. Beyond just his scoring, he is second in the NBA in steals -- he often guards the opponents' top scorer -- and he is tied with Charlotte's Gerald Wallace for most minutes. He has seven games in which he has played all 48 minutes, including one set of back-to-backs.
"I'm pretty used to it," Ellis said. "In high school that's all we really did was run. We'd come in to practice one day and wouldn't even bring a ball out. Just ran for 2 1/2 hours. This is right up my alley."
When the season began, nobody could have guessed that Ellis would have elevated his game to this level. He still was recovering from an ankle injury that was the result of a "moped" accident that had the Warriors contemplating voiding his contract. The first words out of his mouth at training camp were that he didn't think he and rookie guard Stephen Curry could play together in the backcourt, clearly miffed that the team decided to draft and bestow so much love and attention on the youngster.
And, correctly or not, Ellis was inevitably linked with friend Stephen Jackson, who pronounced that he was unhappy with the direction of the team and wanted to be traded. Immediately.
With Jackson on his way out, it was assumed that Ellis, still not over his spat about losing money because of his accident, would soon follow. But to his credit, he never publicly griped. Even as the Warriors started the season 3-8 and clearly were on their way to yet another woeful campaign, Ellis kept quiet and played hard.
And now that Jackson is in Charlotte and things seem to have quieted down, Ellis has become one of the most impressive players in the league.
Twice he has scored more than 40 points. Fifteen times he has gone over 30. In 13 of the last 14 games, he and teammate Corey Maggette have both exceeded 20 points, the first set of Warriors teammates to accomplish that since Chris Mullin and Mitch Richmond.
"This is what I have done since high school," Ellis said. "This is what I do. It's no big deal."
Perhaps not to him. But like Shaq said, it has suddenly raised the debate about All-Star selections and where Ellis fits into that scenario.
Traditionally, coaches are reticent to place players from losing teams onto the team, though that trend was snapped in duplicate last season, when both Indiana's Danny Granger and New Jersey's Devin Harris were placed on the East squad.
Going through the scenarios, Ellis will have a difficult time making the team, particularly if Tracy McGrady, currently at No. 2 in fan voting, steals a starting spot. That would leave three spots for Steve Nash, Brandon Roy, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Ellis and Tyreke Evans.
If Nash overtakes McGrady in the voting, which ends Jan. 18, then Ellis has a better chance, but it still will be difficult. Portland's Roy will be chosen, and arguments could be made that Paul, a starter last season, should make it on reputation alone, especially now that the Hornets have a winning record again.
Williams has helped the Jazz to a 21-17 record with 19.6 points and 9.7 assists a night, and Evans could become one of only four rookies -- Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James are the others -- to average 20 points, five rebounds and five assists a game.
Ellis is sidestepping the All-Star debate for now, saying that he would be honored to go but it is not his decision.
That leaves the chore to others.
"Chris Paul is good. Deron Williams can play," O'Neal said. "But Monta is special."
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