LeRon Ellis Is No Longer Playing Around; He Means Business : Basketball: Former Mater Dei standout hopes to be first player from his high school to be selected in NBA draft.

By BARBIE LUDOVISE

June 18, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

His college basketball career is finished, yet he is hesitant to reminisce. Sure, he remembers the games, the crowds, the rivalries, but those memories--like his high school memories--are of no use to him now.

For LeRon Ellis, business must come first.

Ellis, the former standout at Mater Dei High School who played at Kentucky and, most recently, Syracuse, awaits the June 26 NBA draft with high hopes and a busy schedule:

Thursday he flies from Syracuse to Charlotte, N.C., to meet with Hornet management. He’ll be in Milwaukee on Sunday to visit the Bucks and Tuesday he’ll be in Los Angeles to meet with the Clippers.

On June 26, Ellis will watch the draft--the live broadcast on TNT begins at 4:30 p.m. PST--with his agent, Michael Watkins, and his high school coach, Gary McKnight, at Watkins’ office in Newport Beach.

It is a long-awaited moment, not only for Ellis, who led Mater Dei to two Southern Section 5-A titles and a State Division I title, but also for McKnight. No player in Mater Dei’s illustrious history has been selected in the NBA draft.

If all goes as expected, Ellis will be the first.

Experts say he’ll probably be a first-round selection. Those who saw him play during his senior season at Syracuse--when he averaged 11.1 points and 7.7 rebounds--might scoff at that assessment. His critics say Ellis was erratic last season, especially on offense.

Marty Blake, director of scouting for the NBA, says none of that matters now.

“If all people considered was his senior season, he wouldn’t be drafted,” Blake said.

It was the post-season, invitational camps at Portsmouth, Va., and Orlando, Fla., that gave Ellis the opportunity to show what he could do. Apparently, Ellis made the most of it.

“He opened some eyes,” Blake said. “He played better in the postseason than he had in his whole life.”

Yes, Mater Dei fans, even better than when he played during those shining Monarch moments of 1987, when he led his team to the State Division I title.

At Mater Dei, Ellis was sensational, averaging nearly 23 points and eight rebounds his senior season. In the state final, he scored a game-high 28 points--many on crowd-pleasing dunks--to lead Mater Dei to a 69-51 victory over Concord Ygnacio Valley.

Like many others, Ygnacio Valley Coach Jim Grace described Ellis as “awesome.”

His awesomeness didn’t stop with basketball, however.

Ellis was also the leading scorer for the school’s water polo team, and posted impressive marks in the high jump (6-8) and triple jump (46-9 1/2). Both marks rank on the county’s all-time list.

His fitness level was exceptional as well.

“If I had LeRon run for punishment, he’d laugh,” McKnight said. “He could run all day long without breaking a sweat.”

With endurance, athleticism and size (now 6 feet 11 and 225 pounds, he’s grown an inch and gained a few pounds since his high school days), Ellis seemed destined for a pro basketball career. His father, LeRoy Ellis, played center for the Lakers. The younger Ellis says he’ll probably play power forward in the NBA.

“I have a very active, defensive, jumping, running-up-and-down-the-court kind of game,” Ellis said. “(At Syracuse) I didn’t get to utilize what I do best.”

Playing at two colleges with different systems didn’t help, either.

Ellis was a highly recruited center when he signed with Kentucky his senior year. With the Wildcats, he was a part-time starter his first year, when the team finished 27-6, and lost to Villanova in the third round of the NCAA tournament.

The next season, Kentucky went 13-19, the school’s worst record since 1926-27. While only a sophomore, Ellis led the team with a 16-point average. He also bore the brunt of the fans’ disgust. One local columnist described him as a “tabby cat interested only in numbers.” Not everyone was so nice.

When Kentucky was put on three years’ probation by the NCAA in 1989, Ellis transferred to Syracuse. The Orangemen had a 30-8 record the previous season, and the addition of Ellis to an already solid team was expected to help Syracuse to the Final Four--or better.

One published story went as far as querying a cashier at a campus pizzeria about the team’s chances.

“If they don’t win the national championship this year, they’ll never do it,” the pizza salesman said.

Syracuse lost to Minnesota in the semifinals of the Midwest Regional. Ellis, making the transition from Kentucky’s half-court style to Syracuse’s running game, averaged only six points. Of course, playing in the shadow of All-American Derrick Coleman didn’t help his stats, either.

“I pretty much took a whole season off from scoring my junior year,” Ellis said. “There weren’t enough shots to go around.”

His scoring average nearly doubled last season, and he made significant improvement on the boards. His defense, though, was key.

He blocked 79 shots--second in the Big East Conference to Georgetown’s Alonzo Mourning. Syracuse won the Big East title but was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by Richmond.

Ellis has stayed in Syracuse for summer school and needs about six more units to finish his undergraduate degree--anthropology with a business minor. Asked to evaluate his college career, he seemed only moderately enthused about answering.

“It was all right,” he said. “I had a good time at both places. Had I stayed somewhere for four years, I probably could have been more productive, but, you know, it’s not that big a deal. Stuff happens.”

Such as investigations into recruiting violations. First Kentucky, and now possibly Syracuse.

Reports in the Syracuse Post-Standard last December contend that Syracuse players received cash, meals, merchandise, etc., from team boosters and area businessmen. The newspaper also reported that George Hicker, a Sherman Oaks businessman and former teammate of Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim, hired Ellis’ father at the time Ellis decided to transfer to Syracuse. Hicker disputed the story.

Ellis says he’s not concerned one way or the other.

“I don’t know anything about it . . . I don’t read about it. I don’t care,” he said.

An NBA career is foremost in his mind. Ellis says he doesn’t care which team picks him, as long as he gets to play. A longtime Laker fan, Ellis bristled when asked if he might want to play for the Lakers some day.

“No way,” he said. “Not now, not even some day. They’ve got too many guys already. I want to play.”