Quinn Ellis Scouting Report
Toughness and craft are two intangibles describing Ellis in a nutshell. But what else does he have to offer to the NBA? What will his NBA role look like? What's the long-term intrigue? Find out below.
Ellis has the chance to be the third England-born NBA player next season, with OG Anunoby and Nikola Jović being the other two. While he remained under the consensus radar, the shifty ball handler was one of the standout players among young players in Italy. While competing in the EuroCup, the second-tier international league in Europe, Ellis’ fearlessness stood out.
During the season, he had two game-winning shots to his name, speaking volumes of his not shying away from stepping up at big moments. One of the reasons for Ellis's ascending early on in his career is his feel for the game which makes his teammates respect him as a leader. While he has influential family members in the United Kingdom’s women's basketball scene, Ellis aims to continue his family tradition by representing his nation in the highest achievable league in men’s basketball.
Physical Profile
At 6’4”, Ellis has good positional size to play as a one and a two. While there is no official measurement available, he has good length with a wingspan that should be around 6’8.50”. He has good upper-leg strength and decent hips. This helps him to express his offensive creativity with the ball in his hands.
Despite a good burst for a less-athletic European basketball game, Ellis shows he doesn’t have to rely on his speed to create separation or angles. With decent handles, his craft and confidence stand out when he has the ball in his hands when creating his scoring angles.
The positional size helps him in his rebounding duties. With decent positioning, his effort level in box-outs is what stands out, making Ellis an above-average rebounder for his position.
On the defensive end, Ellis plays with toughness and precision. He doesn’t shy away from taking on contact against both his positions or when he’s in a mismatch. He has to continue to fill his frame and develop his upper-body strength. Despite Ellis being 202 pounds, he’s struggling to handle the physicality against older tall wings and forwards, which is understandable in his role.
Offense
Ellis’ most crucial NBA role will be to serve as a paint touch generator to create open threes for his teammates. At Trento, he didn’t stand out by executing high-level live-dribble reads. Instead, his playmaking via the pick-and-roll is simple and effective, as Trento focused on shooting threes in volume.
In the first play below, we see Ellis attack his switch by selling the lay-up, whereafter he throws the overhead kick-out pass before utilizing the ball screen above the break. However, an area to work on for Ellis is that the ball sticks to his hands for too long at times. In the second play, the offense stagnates after Ellis moves toward the weak side in his team’s five-out offensive scheme.
Hereafter, Ellis is forced to sell his defender an isolation play, before moving to the strong side, hitting the roller with a smart pass. At first hand, the execution may look late, but an important detail is that he draws the interior defense to him, creating the passing angle through the middle. On a less-spaced European floor compared to the NBA, that’s a plus value for Ellis making him create space by leveraging his playmaking. The other side of the coin here is that in terms of pace, he needs too many seconds of the shot clock to execute his reads. Therefore, the quickness of his playmaking must improve.
At 3.2 assists per game, that’s a good number considering Ellis playing about 21 minutes per game. An area NBA decision-makers must keep an eye on is that in some cases, Ellis picks up his dribble too easily when driving into traffic. In the third play, Ellis attacks the interior after changing sides, whereafter the help defense above the break reaches in to steal the ball. A creative ball handler would attempt to change hands while considering hitting the cutter from the weak side. With multiple defenders committing to Ellis, he got bailed out by the open corner shooter, ending the play with a three.
Another area of development for Ellis is his passing too early on plays. In the fourth possession, Ellis hits the big man in the short corner, again bailing himself out after driving into too much traffic through the middle via the weak side. We see the same in the fifth possession below, where Ellis is forced to a quick decision after driving into traffic, bailing himself out with a side pass to the corner.
An NBA decision-maker should use this example to recognize the above-mentioned patterns. An NBA-level playmaker would have decelerated, allowing the big man in the middle to cut to the basket, following it up with a bounce pass to hit the rolling big. It didn’t materialize in this play, showing consistency in bailout passes, it’s clear to project early struggles while adjusting to the NBA’s switch-heavy style of play.
We see the same level of aggressiveness in terms of rim pressure when Ellis is creating his offense. At 1.16 points per play, he’s a good finisher near the rim. What makes this part of his game translatable for the NBA is the combination of quickness and burst, combined with decent handles helping him in creating angles when he’s about the score at the rim.
However, Ellis is a predictable player on that end. While his playmaking consists of rushed passes after dribble penetration, it’s easier for defenses to recognize when he’s looking to create his points. In the first play below, Ellis decelerates after the contact between the screener and his assignment, whereafter he explodes to the rim for the high lay-up while absorbing the contact. His verticality and length stood out in this play, making his scoring feasible to translate to the NBA.
In the second play, Ellis uses his ability to decelerate and accelerate very well. He recognizes the defense committing to his team’s five-out offense, and Ellis smartly decelerates right after his assignment comes over the ball screen. That led to his opponent losing his balance, whereupon Ellis showed his burst in a clear path to the rim via the middle. We see a similar play in the third possession, where Ellis uses the post-up well to recognize the angle in the middle, whereafter he attacks the rim from the same place after coming off the ball screen.
Despite the miss, that’s the type of offensive creativity an NBA decision-maker looks for in a guard. Ellis’ biggest area of development in his self-creation is getting into lay-up mode way too early. He has no issues in generating paint touches via the pick-and-roll. However, during the season, it often ended up in Ellis leaving points on the board by getting to his finish way too early, as shown in the last play below; an area of development for the next few years.
For Ellis, creating his offense out of closeouts will decide how scalable his ball touches are at the next level. An NBA franchise cannot afford to give a rookie many on-ball reps, therefore, making it count when he’s getting the opportunity is crucial for his development. And closeouts are the base for low-usage guards to show their self-creation ability. To maintain an offensive rating, it’s important for NBA franchises that they have offensive creativity at hand on the players who complement the team, rather than run the offense.
Ellis’ biggest downfall in his young career so far is him simply forcing his offense at times. He suffers from tunnel vision at times, hurting his court vision as a creator, while he’s settling for tough shots at the same time. More often than not, he’s bailing defenses out with it.
In the first play, he’s put in the situation to create something with six seconds left. Due to his paint-touch-generating character play, his defender eliminated the threat by simply staying in front of Ellis. Due to the predictable character of his offense, it’s tough to use his burst and quickness as a separator.
The same applies to the second play below, where Ellis attacks his man via the strong side after the hesitation move. With two wide-open teammates at the elbow and corner, his finishing at the rim in traffic was simply a bad look on his part. This confirms the tunnel vision that will hurt his NBA chances even further.
As a result of wanting to do too much on offense, the more experienced players have no issue banking on their mistakes. In the third play below, preferring the strong side over the weak side drive or the extra pass led to the help defender simply reaching for the steal without committing to rotating from his assignment. An NBA decision-maker must invest time in Ellis’ offensive development, with decision-making off the dribble being the area of focus.
At 31.4% on 2.8 three-point attempts per game, Ellis is a decent shooter in terms of production. An important nuance is much less spacing on a European floor compared to the American game. Therefore, it’s important to contextualize the numbers, rather than taking them at face value and comparing them to production in for instance college basketball.
The sample size is good in Ellis’ case. What immediately stood out was his ability to set his feet correctly. The footwork while shooting from a standstill is what will benefit Ellis in a reduced role at the next level. In the first play below, he does well to leverage his burst and explosiveness by aggressively setting his pivot foot to create extra space before the shot.
His mechanics are consistent. With his good positional size and length, his high release point will be viewed as a positive by NBA decision-makers. He has a good follow-through and keeps the ball high enough to help him power up for the shot while maintaining a natural release, with the second and third plays being examples.
However, at times Ellis falls in love with the jumper too much. In the third play, it’s not a bad look on his to take the open three, despite looking influenced by the hard shot contest from his left side. Therefore, attacking the closeout with a wide-open driving lane in the middle could have been another outcome of the play.
While it’s true that you don’t have to attack the closeout every time, being more adaptive and valuing the extra play will help Ellis in the long run. Especially when he improves his tunnel vision and shot selection in closeout attacks.
Defense
At 2.6 fouls in roughly 21 minutes per game, Ellis often struggled as a pick-and-roll defender against much more experienced opponents. His screen navigation is below average, despite his level of effort making up for a part of it. His length and quickness allow him to partially compensate for the space he lost on the opponent getting separation via ball screens.
In the first play below, this leads to a personal foul as he’s too aggressive in his defense. However, that’s a testimony to him playing hard and should be valued by NBA decision-makers. As a young guard in an experienced Italian league and Eurocup, it’s a given that centers with better-developed frames will target him in ball screens. The second play shows a similar outcome, where Ellis does well to contest from behind, but the level of physicality looks too much to overcome at times.
Therefore, continuing to fill his frame is crucial for his development as a pick-and-roll defender. Ellis shows flashes of improvement in how he’s bending forward in a way where he can slide between ball handler and screener. But with the higher quality of screeners in Europe compared to the United States, he should be better off defending against most NBA centers he’ll face rather than the European ones.
With much more contact being allowed in Europe, the third play is an example an NBA decision-maker should focus on. After the ball handler gets separated, we see a mean push-off from the big man before the roll, which is just soft enough to not get called, while it brings Ellis out of balance, making him getting stronger a recurring thing.
Ellis’ toughness is better visible in his off-ball defense against cutters. In the first play, he does well to dodge the screener to impact the passing lane to come up with the steal. With ball-watching being a common thing for young prospects, Ellis shows maturity on that end, while maintaining focus on his assignment. This is one of the reasons why his team was keen on giving him a larger role despite his young age.
However, at times he’s still beaten by his opponents in the experience battle. While he’s facing former Cleveland Cavalier Ante Žižić in the second possession, he’s locked in front of him after the opponent switched to create a mismatch. Despite the strength disadvantage, Ellis shows toughness in denying an entry pass, whereafter he passes via the teammate got Žižić finishing the play at the dunker’s spot.
The third play made it look as if Ellis got the backdoor cut against him. However, the nuance here is that Ellis made a mistake in the assignment, as he was the pick-and-roll defender. This left the weakside defender against two opponents, followed by a lack of rotations on his team’s side. An area of development for the upcoming years is Ellis's more actively rotating as an off-ball defender. In the last play, he was coaching the teammate’s rotations, while he had to rotate to the play-finisher himself. It’s not an issue in this case, as the flashes, toughness, and leadership despite a young age are more important to determine his long-term growth as a defender.
As a defender against closeout attackers, Ellis is vulnerable in biting on fakes and jab steps. This makes it tough for him to consistently reward himself with his ability to keep opponents in front of him. His lateral quickness stands out, as he slides his feet well enough to recover quickly when he loses his balance.
At over 200 pounds and still developing upper-body strength, he does well in absorbing contact against the ones, twos, and threes he’s facing in Europe. However, he gets caught in the air more often than not, leaving his defense to collapse and him having to either rotate or cover up too much ground. This leads to opponents often finding good looks against him, putting a target on his back for opposing scouting reports.
In the first play below, the angle for a potential pull-up three was non-existent as Ellis should have seen the baseline drive coming from miles away. His positioning with a foot in the paint was good, leaving him closing out while staying at 180 degrees from his opponent which also checks out. His decision-making on fakes however costs him a potential open look at the rim, before getting bailed out by a foot-on-the-line turnover.
The same applies to the second play, where the closeout is again good, but a simple fake getting Ellis to bite and thus collapses the defense with the drop-coverage big man not being able to close out the shooter timely from the midrange.
The third play is a valuable one, where NBA champion Marco Belinelli punishes Ellis’ vulnerability on fakes. However, in terms of Ellis’ athleticism, the second jump was impressive on his part, improving in the future is imminent if he can get better at deciding what’s a fake and what is not. The last possession is an example of what improvements on that end can look like. Ellis does well in keeping his assignment in front of him, while he recovers quickly after biting on the fake. His second jump is an asset NBA decision-makers will be intrigued by.
When defending against spot-up shooters, Ellis uses his length well combined with his defensive footwork. Fundamentally, he’s ahead of his age with how well he uses his pivot foot when he’s closing out. Maintaining balance and keeping his opponent at 180 degrees is effortless for him.
In the first play below, Ellis has two feet inside the paint, making him a tad too slow in closing out on the shooter. Therefore, the area of development for him is to have one foot in the paint and experiment more with his positioning. Because on a better-spaced NBA floor, he’ll have to cover up more ground when closing out to the shooter here. Bad positioning takes away the value of his excellent burst and footwork in the closeouts.
The second possession is impressive. Ellis shows toughness in the big man trying to seal off him after the entry pass. Fluid hips show mobility in how he recovers his stance by getting in the big man’s back again, following it up by picking up his teammate’s rotation on the shooter. Despite the make, the level of effort and execution is a positive for a young prospect among professionals who are way older than him.
In the third play, the spot-up shooter recognizes Ellis’ two feet in the paint, making him relocate to the elbow. Hereafter, Ellis counters very well in how he keeps his balance while closing out, and uses his pivot foot well to launch for the jump leading to a good shot contest. However, his positioning took away some of the value of his good execution. Overall, this is still viewed as a positive flash that can develop into something much better with NBA development. Ellis mastering his athleticism so well in his closeouts is what an NBA decision-maker will look for. The made threes against him on the examples should therefore be taken at face value.
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NBA Draft Projection
Despite less coverage compared to other European prospects, Ellis’ play in both the Eurocup and Italian Lega Basket Serie A kept him on NBA radars throughout the whole draft cycle. To summarize, here are his strengths and areas of development.
Strengths
Untapped potential in his athleticism. His quick second jump will make him a much more effective defender once his decision-making against pump-fakes and jab steps improves.
Shows toughness and aggressiveness. Despite his young age, he’s vocal and not afraid to show leadership to way older teammates. He doesn’t shy away from physical contact, even when being in heavy mismatches.
Consistent jumper with good mechanics and a high release point. Although he falls in love with the jumper too often, the shot itself is projectable and could be developed into an above-average one in the NBA.
Areas of development
He has tunnel vision when creating for himself. Making the extra pass is an area of development for Ellis.
He’s more of a passer than a playmaker. When executing reads, Ellis is often seen passing the ball too early, with the recipient getting the ball at the place he is located, instead of where he needs to be.
Below-average screen navigation. He gets targeted often and struggles to fight through screens consistently due to a lack of upper-body strength.
Based on the pros, cons, and NBA readiness of his profile, I project Quinn Ellis to be an undrafted free agent. With much more guard talent in the NBA pool than ever before the competition is too much, making a potential two-way signing difficult. However, Ellis is clear in his desire to be part of the NBA, leaving a good team context in Trento, where he played in the Italian tier-one league, and the Eurocup, the second-tier international league in Europe, where he competed among the best.
Ellis has clear NBA projectable skills, with untapped potential left in his decision-making and utilizing his athleticism better than he does now. Therefore, I project a team eventually betting on him in signing him on a two-way later in the season while starting his career by signing an Exhibit 10 contract to stay with the team’s G League affiliate.