5 NBA stars who lost their shine because of analytics

#3 Monta Ellis

Ellis with the Milwaukee Bucks

In 2012, the Golden State Warriors split the fan-favorite backcourt of Monta Ellis and Steph Curry by sending Ellis to the Milwaukee Bucks for center Andrew Bogut. And the rest is history. Years later, this is what Ellis had to say about that trade "I think everything happens for a reason. I think if I was there, we probably wouldn’t have won a championship."

If analytics ever measured truthfulness, Ellis would have some of the highest ratings. Now, on to his time with the Bucks.

In 2013, Ellis turned down a 3 year, $36 million offer from the Bucks as he was looking for 4 years, $40+ million offer elsewhere. Despite averaging 19.2 ppg, 6.0 apg, and 2.1 spg in the 2012-13 season, Ellis did not get any offer that he wanted. Numbers like that usually fetch great contracts for players, especially if you are only 27 years old. However, he ended up signing a meager 2 years, $16 million contract with the Dallas Mavericks. Way less than what he had targeted. His agent was fired in the process.

Let's see why this happened.

Out of all the qualifying guards for the 2012-2013 season, the only player who scored less efficiently than Ellis was Tony Allen (who's not in the NBA for his offence). The Bucks' offensive ratings dropped to 100 when Ellis was on the court, compared to 104 when he was off it. On top of his inefficient scoring, Ellis was an undersized shooting guard and one of the worst defenders in the league.

All of this made Ellis the prime example of the type of players who the NBA GMs are not going to pay big. As of today, a 32-year-old Ellis isn't the part of an NBA roster.