Ex-NBA star Monta Ellis named Alcorn State basketball GM

EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsFormer NBA standout Monta Ellis, who played in the league for more than a decade without playing college basketball, will serve as general manager at Alcorn State this season, the school announced Friday.Alcorn State, an HBCU that finished 9-23 last year, is near the home of the Mississippi native who starred at Lanier High School in Jackson, Mississippi before the Golden State Warriors selected him with the 40th pick in the 2005 NBA draft out of high school.Since leaving the NBA, Ellis said he's been focused on his family and guiding his son Monta Ellis Jr., a 2028 recruit with multiple Division I offers. He said the opportunity to help Alcorn State will also enable him to give back to a community he loves."Well, this opportunity came to me. Coach Jake Morton reached out and said they were thinking of this idea of me being a general manager. And I was shocked about it at first, but then as I thought about it, I was like, 'This would be a great opportunity for a lot of kids that would be left out,'" he said. "I have an opportunity to give to some kids that never felt like they had an opportunity to play Division I or go to a college. I have the ability to make that happen being a GM of Alcorn State."And I've been coaching and training kids for the last 10 years, and I've seen a lot of kids that could play and didn't get scholarships. I just think it's an opportunity for kids like that and also to give back to the state of Mississippi, trying to bring a lot of in-state kids to keep them at home versus letting them go out of state and to other colleges."E. D'Wayne Robinson, Alcorn State's athletic director, said Ellis gives the school automatic credibility for future recruits."It's almost like an endorsement from someone that endorses a brand product," Robinson said. "There are certain people out there that it raises the level of respect for that product. And with Monte having the type of gravitas that he has from being a player, he's been a good guy over the years, the program benefits from his brand. The program benefits from his conversations with other brands. The program benefits from his conversations with other potential student athletes for our program. The program benefits from other folks who may want to support Alcorn State University Athletics because Monte Ellis has said, 'Hey, I'm here supporting Alcorn State University as a person and with my brand.'"Ellis, who earned Most Improved Player during the 2006-07 season, played with Steph Curry before he became the superstar that led the team to multiple NBA titles and changed the franchise. Ellis was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks in 2012 for Andrew Bogut, who won a championship with Curry and the Warriors three years later.Ellis said the Warriors teams in the years that preceded that run set the stage for what Curry and Co. accomplished. But a fleet of developmental players never positioned his teams to win at that level."That's what I dealt with. And people know that," Ellis said. "Real people that know basketball and all that, they know that. They know the team that I was dealt with. If you switched me and Steph out with the team that won the championships, it'd be the same thing. So you've got to take the good with the bad and that's cool. It put me in a position to make money for me and my family. I ran with that."Right now, however, he said he's focused on bringing more attention to Alcorn State basketball."On the basketball side, I think this will be a big, big boost for the basketball side to get recognized," he said.