Fiercely private, Mavs' Ellis reveals his passions - the Cowboys, fishing ... and winning
by: Eddie Sefok - Dallas Morning News
Monta Ellis has been a Cowboys fan since he was a little kid.
Growing up in Jackson, Miss., it was either that, or the New Orleans Saints, the two teams that local television showed on a regular basis. And he didn’t like the Saints’ color scheme.
“Blue’s my favorite color,” Ellis, 29, says.
So, it’s no surprise that whenever the Mavericks’ schedule permitted, Ellis would find his way to owner Mark Cuban’s private suite at AT&T Stadium to watch his beloved Cowboys this season.
And then, the play happened.
Every athlete who makes it to the professional level knows what it’s like to get jobbed by the referees.
That doesn’t make the Dez Bryant catch/review/no catch any easier for Ellis to swallow, even a couple of weeks after the fact.
“I was angry, but I’ll take that loss,” he said recently in a lengthy interview session. “It came down to that call. It ain’t the end of the world. We could have gone on longer.
“But that was a bad call. You can’t tell someone that they didn’t catch the ball when they come down with the ball, have possession, take three steps and try to lunge for the touchdown and then say he wasn’t trying to make a football play. But they did way better than people expected.”
Kind of interesting that people are saying the same thing about Ellis these days.
Couldn’t accept losing
Ellis is a legitimate All-Star candidate in his second season with the Mavericks, averaging 20 points to lead the team, along with 4.5 assists.
Yet he is the one Maverick who fans know little about, which is the way Ellis likes it. He’s a private person, but his teammates say he’s fun-loving and has strong character in the locker room.
The Cowboys are one of his passions. Fishing is another, and he’s got some whoppers to tell (more on that in a moment).
Right now, neither of those is as important as what’s going on in his professional life. Ellis, like everybody else on the Mavericks, knows this group has a high ceiling for this season and beyond. There is too much talent for the Mavericks not to be taken seriously when it comes to championship talk.
Lots of ground must be covered between now and the playoffs. And Ellis absolutely has to be one of the cornerstones of anything that happens with this team. It is not open to debate that he has become one of the franchise’s best players and somebody who is being relied upon to carry this team forward.
That’s why he is smiling these days. He’s come a long way on the NBA radar over the last two years. In 2012-13, he was wasting away with Milwaukee. And that was after his time at Golden State — once some of the happiest seasons of his career — ended with both sides unhappy.
“It did a lot for me because it was a new beginning,” Ellis said of his arrival in Dallas as a free agent in the summer of 2013.
“I was coming to a way better team, a way better organization. And I came with a bunch of guys who work hard and want to win, which is the same thing I wanted. It made me enjoy basketball again.”
It was like that in the beginning for Ellis, who was selected by Golden State straight out of Lanier High School in Jackson, Miss., in the second round of the 2005 draft (40th overall).
He loved playing for the Warriors and was embraced by Bay Area fans — and the organization, too. But it didn’t last.
“The old ownership that they had, they didn’t know what direction they wanted to head in,” Ellis said. “I figured my time there was wearing out. So I had to do something.
“When the new ownership came in, they had an idea of what they wanted to do. And so I just was like, ‘I know my time is done here.’
“When you’re in a place where everything stops running through you, then you know that it’s about time to leave. So I was ready and prepared for it.”
The two seasons in Milwaukee weren’t any better, however. And Ellis admits now that he was not the happiest camper during that time.
“If you don’t win, that’s when you go in a dark place,” he said. “I’m a great competitor, and I want to win. That’s who I am. And if I’m not winning, I’m a different type of person. That’s one thing that Golden State couldn’t understand. It was like they were accepting losing. And they wanted me to accept and embrace losing. I couldn’t do that.
“If you’re mad at your best player because he’s tired of losing, then it should be a question about your character and what you’re trying to do.”
That’s what makes the situation with the Mavericks so much better. And it’s clear to everybody around Ellis that he’s benefited from the Mavericks every bit as much as they have from him.
“He stays in his lane,” center Tyson Chandler said. “He’s not caught up with all the hype that sometimes you can run into being an NBA player. He doesn’t get caught up in his success.
“And I think coming to Dallas really helped him understand how to win and what it takes to win. I played against him in the past. He was a scorer, but that was it. Now, he’s understanding how to be a winner, which is a big difference.”
His other passion
The fish were biting at the little lake near Batesville, Miss., between Jackson and Memphis, Tenn., during the summer before Ellis’ senior season at Lanier.
The father of one of his teammates had a cabin on the lake. It was one of Ellis’ best fishing trips ever.
“We were down there three days, and we caught 183 fish in three days,” he said, remembering it like it was yesterday. “We caught 90-some crappie, 80-some bluegills and one catfish. I didn’t even take the catfish off the hook.”
Catfish are like Superman’s Kryptonite for Ellis, although he confesses he’ll eat them when he gets the chance.
“But I only like the small ones,” he said. “Once they get big, they start tasting like the bottom of the lake.
“I don’t like to catch them. I’ll cut the line. One time, I caught a 20-pound catfish on a cane pole, and when I caught him, it was daylight and when I got him in, it was nighttime. I had to wrestle with him for 35 or 40 minutes because of the little pole I had.”
Though he grew up urbanized in Jackson, Ellis remains country at heart. He still likes to fish when he can. It relaxes him.
Other than spending time with his son and daughter, it would be how he would spend a perfect off day away from basketball.
“He’s a great dude. He’s country,” Chandler said. “Even though he was born in Jackson? That’s not country? We call it country. He’s a country boy with a great heart.
“And he’s one of the best athletes in our game.”
That’s what Ellis takes great pride in. He has an enormous heart on the court, as well as in his private life. And he takes a beating on the court. He is fearless going to the basket. And he hits the floor often during a game.
He gets frustrated, like any player, when he feels the pounding he takes does not get the proper respect from referees.
But he controls himself better than most players.
“Monta is a leader and one of the premier competitors in the NBA,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. “He’s aggressive, tough and defiantly persistent the way he keeps coming at the opponent. Without question one of the best players I’ve ever worked with.”
And one of the best to come through Dallas, even if he remains a bit mysterious.
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