On the eve of their last game of the season, the Warriors finally communicated to Monta Ellis that they will not void his contract and he will be given no further penalties relating to his off-season moped accident. Sources revealed to ESPN.com's Marc Stein that the Warriors sent Ellis' agent a letter assuring him they would pursue no further consequences.
I sincerely hope Monta did not celebrate this news with any wheelies, endos, or bunnyhops.
After the Warriors sidelined Ellis for the remainder of the season effective this past Friday, know-it-alls like me wondered aloud if Ellis had played his last game as a Warrior. There had been trade mutterings as Monta "moped" around on the court after returning from the ankle injury. The team continuously and deliberately refused to rule out the possibility of voiding the rest of Ellis' $66 million contract. Coach Nelson 's recent remarks on Monta have sounded pretty lukewarm. Things were really -- specifically not -- getting patched up between the two sides.
So why did the Warriors let the sword dangle over Ellis the whole entire season, waiting until literally the night before the final game to let him off the hook? We don't know -- but this is the Internet, so we speculate.
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They might have just wanted to see Monta worry. They might not have made up their mind until he dropped 42 on Sacramento before being deactivated. They might have wanted to let Chris Mullin do one more nice thing before they can him.
Or the real answer may lie in a few posts on Tim Kawakami's Talking Points blog on the Mercury-News site. Kawakami wrote a post on April 10 reporting that team president Robert Rowell had declared the team had told Ellis they wouldn't void his contract -- but Ellis' agent insisted he and his client had been told no such thing. Then in a post last night, Kawakami reported that the news was eventually delivered to Ellis' agent as the agent was in town in conjunction with the promotion of a boxing match, one which Ellis is also helping to promote.
Rowell himself, notes Kawakami, was in the press conference audience for the boxing match. Are the Warriors actually trying to win back Monta's allegiance by supporting he and his agent's side projects? And limiting their communications with Monta's agent to only those times when he's in town to promote a prizefight?
I'd rather Monta stayed away from boxing as an extracurricular. Boxing sounds even more dangerous than riding a moped.
Joe Kukura is a freelance writer who couldn't even tell you what an "endo" is.
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