Former Curry Teammate Makes Daring Claim: I Would Have Achieved the Same Success as Steph

Monta Ellis firmly believes the Golden State Warriors would have achieved similar success had he been in Stephen Curry's shoes.

Now the new general manager for Alcorn State University's athletic program, Ellis made the bold claim that he, too, could have led Golden State to multiple NBA titles if he had been given the same championship-caliber teams that Curry ultimately played with.

"That's what I was up against. And people know it," Ellis told Myron Medcalf of ESPN. "The real basketball people know it. They know what type of team I had to work with. If you would have swapped me with Steph and gave me the team he had when he won championships, the outcome would have been the same. So you have to take the good with the bad. It gave me an opportunity to make money for myself and my family. I took advantage of it," the former Warriors guard added.

Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis played together as teammates before the start of the Warriors' dynasty.

With both players being undersized guards, it created defensive challenges for Golden State, presenting the club with a difficult dilemma. Ultimately, the Warriors chose Curry over Ellis, with the 2007 Most Improved Player being traded to the Milwaukee Bucks in 2012 in exchange for Andrew Bogut.

During his career, Ellis also played for the Dallas Mavericks and Indiana Pacers.

Gosho Metodiev