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Monta Ellis believes the Golden State Warriors would have achieved the same championship success if he had replaced Stephen Curry on the teams that won four NBA titles. Ellis made the claim while reflecting on his Warriors tenure and the circumstances surrounding his departure from Golden State.

“If you switched me and Steph out with the team that won the championships, it’d be the same thing,” Ellis said, per ESPN’s Myron Medcalf. “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.”

Ellis spent his first seven NBA seasons with Golden State after the Warriors selected him No. 40 overall in the 2005 draft. He averaged 19.6 points, 4.1 assists and 3.6 rebounds over 394 games with the franchise and won the 2007 Most Improved Player award.

His best statistical season came in 2009-10, when Ellis averaged 25.5 points, 5.3 assists and 4.0 rebounds while playing 41.4 minutes per game. He followed that with 24.1 points, 5.6 assists and 3.5 rebounds in 2010-11.

Curry entered the picture when Golden State selected him No. 7 overall in the 2009 draft. Ellis initially questioned whether the two undersized guards could coexist, later explaining that he believed playing two small guards in the Western Conference would not work.

Golden State ultimately traded Ellis to the Milwaukee Bucks in March 2012 for Andrew Bogut. Curry remained with the Warriors and became the centerpiece of a roster that eventually won championships in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022.

Curry’s individual production also separated the two careers. He has won two MVP awards, made the All-NBA team 11 times and established himself as one of the most prolific three-point shooters in NBA history, while Ellis finished his 12-year career with averages of 17.8 points, 4.6 assists and 3.5 rebounds over 833 games.

Ellis never made an NBA All-Star team despite averaging at least 20 points in four seasons. His final NBA season came in 2016-17 with the Indiana Pacers, after previous stops with the Bucks and Dallas Mavericks.

Ellis’ comments come as he begins a new chapter in basketball. Alcorn State announced Friday that the Jackson, Mississippi, native has been hired as general manager of its men’s basketball program, where he will oversee roster construction, recruiting, transfer portal decisions and NIL opportunities.

Alcorn went 9-23 overall and 7-11 in SWAC play last season. Ellis now returns to Mississippi in a front-office role after a professional career that produced 14,858 points, 3,856 assists and 2,874 rebounds.