Tim Kawakami Discusses’ Golden State’s Possible Reaction To Ellis’ Trade Demand

Tim Kawakami, who has been on this story and everything Golden State Warriors since the beginning, updates us on the Monta Ellis situation as it stands.

Ellis’ agent is apparently in town and hoping to meet with GM Larry RIley and team president Robert Rowell to express discontent with the situation on behalf of his client. If they do meet, what could possibly happen?

At this point, Rowell and Riley will either…

A) Try to calm things down, as they’ve done various times in the recent past, and tell Fried that all is well with Monta, he’s the centerpiece, don’t worry about Don Nelson’s shenanigans and don’t mind all the mess around here, you just happened to show up on a bad day… or…

B) Get mad and say that they’ll do what they damn well please with Ellis and the team or…

C) Say fine, we’ll try to trade Ellis, and if you ask, we’ll give you permission to talk to other teams and find a workable trade for us both.

Kawakami suspects a combination of all three responses from Riley and Rowell, but that they’ll ultimately be boxed in to option C. And why wouldn’t they be? How many “bad days” can Monta Ellis continue to stand with Don Nelson? He’s sure had a lot of them recently. They also can’t take the hard-line approach because Ellis will sulk and his trade value will tank. It appears the only option is to seek out a trade.

Kawakami proposes six possible Ellis destinations: Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, Memphis, New Jersey and Toronto. Here’s the problem: three of those teams (Miami, Chicago and New Jersey) are saving money for the 2010 free agent extravaganza and two of those teams (Philly and Memphis) are losing money and very reluctant to take on long-term contracts. That leaves Toronto, but as Kawakami admits, Toronto doesn’t have a ton of players they’d likely be willing to trade for Ellis that Golden State would want.

This once again begs the question: is there much of a market out there for Ellis after all? He’s a very talented player, but his contract and baggage could very easily drive down his value.