Why Monta Ellis' comfort in the Pacers locker room makes them better! "Lions & Sheep"

"Y'all ain't seen nothin' yet bruh!" 

John Quincy Adams once said, "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." John C. Maxwell, the well-known author, gave it to us like this, "A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way." Then the big homie, Alexander The Great, broke it down like Steve Jobs at an Apple company general session before the IPhone came out when he spit, "I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion."

Well playas...Monta Ellis is makin' me look like a freakin' genius this mornin'! I've been tellin' you boyz since the NBA season started that the Pacers would only go as far as this dun would take them. Now he's in the driver's seat with the tinted windows cracked at eye brow with the seat leaned all the way back bumpin' Rick Ross's first joint "I'm A Hustler." On Saturday night Monta took control of the reigns, popped a boy for 32 points and led the Pacers to an overtime victory over the Denver Nuggets 109-105. 

Let's keep it real or all the way 100, whichever comes 1st! Monta Ellis is the leader of that team playboy!! Why? Because he's the Alpha Male!!! He's not the best player or the most talented player but he's the dun with the juice. Paul George is the best player pimpin' don't get that twisted!! However, PG isn't the guy that boyz are gonna follow into battle. Monta is!! 

Back in November I wrote the fire joint entitled, "Baddest Dude" where I specifically stated that in order for the Pacers to become the team that they had the potential to become Monta had to lead them. Frank came into the season experimentin' with the small ball lineup etc. Which was cool because he didn't know what he was gonna get out of his bigs. He knew what he hadn't gotten out of "Skittles and Lemondheads" over the past several years so it was fair game. 

I rolled with him on that because it made sense to try. That's why I like Frank's style because he's not afraid to experiment with lineups and combinations of different cats to get better. He, in my opinion, has overachieved with the personnel that he's had over the past several years. But when he signed Monta Ellis I knew that he had finally gotten the leader that he'd been missin'. 

Boyz, as in fans and some fake media-types, around this piece initially thought that Monta would be a locker room problem because of the issues that he ran into in Dallas. But what they didn't understand was that Larry Bird and the Pacers organization have been so paranoid over the years about gettin' bad seeds to play for the Pacers ever since duns like Ron Artest, Jamal Tinsley and Steven Jackson ran a muck that they've got a locker room full of sheep. Great dudes and really good players but nobody with edge enough to lead and ball at the same time. Yeah, they had Lance Stephenson but that dun wasn't a leader. He was just all edge and had no substance to lead or play TEAM basketball. That's why Charlotte got rid of him faster than Kim Kardashian got divorced ole dull Kris Humphries and the Clippers have buried him on their bench so far that you need a map to find him. That ain't leadership playa, that's foolishness. 

Monte's issues in Dallas resulted from too many Alpha Males in one room. There's always gonna be beef when more than one Alpha breathin' air. Insertin' him into the Pacers locker room with a bunch of young nice guys that can hoop is genius. Now that he's becomin' more comfortable with understandin'  that it's his locker room to lead you're gonna see him blossom into leader I keep tellin' you that he can be. 

Let me put it where the goats can get it playboy! I grew up around gangstas and thugs in an environment where street gangs controlled everything. Even though cats are bad and can do work they still need to be led. You would think that the baddest gangsta would be the leader of the gang but he typically isn't. He's the cat that understands how to lead because of his interpersonal skills and his ability to take over the room. The toughest guy is never the leader. He's lookin' for some cat to always direct him even though he's a stone gangsta. 

Tupac was a perfect example of a dun not bein' a tough guy but he was a leader. He wasn't a gangsta at all but he had all of the gangstas followin' him even though he contradicted himself every other record. He was tellin' women to "Keep Ya Head Up" on one record and then tellin' the same women "I get around" on the next! 

It works the same way in sports and specially in basketball. Now can the best player be the leader too. Sure he can!! We see it all of the time. Michael Jordan is the biggest example of that. But not on this Pacers team! Why? Because Paul George is just a nice guy that can hoop. Monta is the guy with the edge, charisma, bravado and enough talent to have boyz ride with him when he's bumpin' that Rick Ross! He's the lion leadin' the sheep! Stop me when I start lyin'! 

Playas Thesaurus: 
1)   Spit: verb - to say
2) Dun: noun - the person in question, dude, guy, etc. It's whoever I'm talkin' about and its non-gender specific. 
3) Cracked at eye blow: adjective - to have the window cracked open just enough for a person to see the top of the driver's head. It's the hood illusion of keepin' boy wonderin' who's drivin' that car. 
4)  Juice: noun - the power
5) Skittles and Lemonheads: noun - Roy Hibbert
6) Let me put it where the goats can get it : to break it down to it's simplest form, to make easy to understand, to put at the simplest level.