Making it to the very top of the NBA requires incredible confidence in yourself as a player, and even just making it to the league means you have to be one of the best 400 players in the world at any given time. So it’s no surprise that a lot of players rate themselves very high even if they don’t have the biggest achievements to back it up. No player has ever been a better example of this though, than Monta Ellis in 2010.
Ellis is one of the most underrated players to have played in the NBA, and he still wanted to play this season too. During his peak from 2007 to 2012, Ellis averaged over 22 points per game to go along with 5 assists and nearly 2 steals. However, he was never an All-Star and certainly not at the level of players that were dominating this era like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Most would agree with this, except Monta himself, who gave an all-time bizarre take in 2010 (via SFGATE).
3/27/2010 – Monta Ellis says he is the 2nd best player in NBA, ranking himself between LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. pic.twitter.com/3MWqlwlMTU
— This Day in Suck (@Thisdayinsuck) March 27, 2019
“I’m going to say LeBron James,” Ellis said in ranking LeBron No. 3 in the league. “He can do it all, pass, score, defend, block shots. No. 2, I would have to say, me. I can do a whole lot of things: defend, score, make passes, do whatever I need to do.
“No. 1, I’d say Kobe Bryant. There isn’t one player who can stop Kobe one-on-one. He has a lot of stuff. He can defend. And of course, he won four championships.”
Ellis enjoyed his best season with the Warriors in 2010, averaging 25.5 points, which is objectively amazing. But comparing himself to LeBron James, who was about to win back-to-back MVPs, and actually putting himself above the King is pretty wild. At least he did put Kobe above himself, considering that the Mamba himself was in the middle of a run that saw him clinch two titles and two Finals MVPs.
