One of the biggest mysteries of the Sacramento Kings 2024-25 regular season is why head coach Mike Brown doesn't play Keon Ellis more. On paper, Ellis is the ideal role player. He can shoot, attack off the catch, defend the perimeter, and protect the rim.
Meanwhile, the Kings – a team searching for help off the bench – are only playing Ellis 17 minutes against the San Antonio Spurs, a game in which they were missing Kevin Huerter and Trey Lyles (two of their top eight players).
At a glance, this may be a head-scratching phenomenon. But hidden within the tape of the game could be the answer we have been searching for.
Keon Ellis may be someone who drives coaches crazy
In an attempt to put all that I've learned about the sport after covering it for years to the test, I recently took a gig as an assistant varsity coach at my old school. During that time, I've learned about what can frustrate a head coach.
Every player is going to make mistakes. It's a part of the game. With that said, there are certain mistakes that make coaches angrier than others. One of those triggers is breakdowns in defensive execution.
If a player is simply better than you and they beat you, who cares? At least you know you gave your all on that possession. But if a team scores a basket because you didn't do what you were supposed to, your head coach will not be happy.
Ellis is an uber-aggressive defender. He loves to create high value plays like steals (86th percentile in steal rate) and blocks (88th percentile in block rate). That's great, but it also comes at a cost. Sometimes, these types of defenders can be so aggressive that they put themselves out of place on defense.
In the clip above, Ellis gets caught helping off the strong side shooter way too hard. As a result, his assignment, Julian Champagnie, is able to get the inside angle on his cut to the rim, which leads to an offensive rebound and free throws.
Now, the Kings do have a tendency to help off of shooters in order to protect the paint (1st in opponent rim frequency, per Cleaning the Glass), but you can tell Ellis took it too far because, at the end of the play, Jae Crowder (the new guy) is pointing and explaining to him what he did wrong.
Now, here is the clip we alluded to in the post headline. Ellis was the designated crasher for the Kings on offense (meaning he's the one going for the offensive rebound). So, he's naturally going to be the last one back on defense.
To make up for this disadvantage, Ellis should have picked up the player who was boxing him out (Champagnie, again). But instead, he tries to go for a steal, fails, and Champagnie is able to attack off the catch and easily get to the rim.
If you look closely, Malik Monk gives Ellis a look of frustration, and then he immediately goes up to Brown to ask him if the breakdown was somehow his fault. The clip, unfortunately, ends before we see Brown's reaction. But if you watch the Kings' broadcast on NBA League Pass, you will see what looks like Brown reassuring Monk that he did nothing wrong (the 32:40 mark of the broadcast).
Here is one more clip of an Ellis breakdown (not switching the screening action) leading to one of his teammates (Domantas Sabonis) getting frustrated:
For all that Ellis does well on a basketball court, he also puts himself in some bad situations by hyper-focusing on defensive playmaking. This is very valuable, but coaches also place a huge emphasis (whether right or wrong) on being able to defend within the team concept. Given Brown's long tenure in the NBA and history as a defensive-minded coach, this is especially true for him.
This is the part where we mention how big of fans we are of Ellis at A Royal Pain. This is also where I add that, personally, Ellis' lapses wouldn't be damaging enough for me to feel deterred from giving him more minutes. After all, the Kings are still 7.3 points better per 100 possessions when Ellis is on the floor than when he is on the bench (per Cleaning the Glass).
But after picking up on these little nuances, it makes sense why Brown isn't giving Ellis more minutes, even with all the injuries the team has had to endure. This just goes to show that these NBA coaches know what they were talking about. Who would have thought!