Phoenix Suns' D-League coach Ty Ellis knows how to grind
UPDATE: The Phoenix Suns and Northern Arizona Suns formally announced the hiring of Ty Ellis as the D-League team's head coach on Tuesday, Aug. 9. The team will introduce Ellis at a special event at the Prescott Valley Event Center on Thursday, August 18, at 12:30 p.m. The event is open to the public.
"We are thrilled to have Ty return with us in his new role as head coach of the Northern Arizona Suns,” said Phoenix Suns Director of Player Personnel and Northern Arizona Suns General Manager Bubba Burrage. “With Tyrone Ellis, the Suns have a highly-qualified coach who also possesses the highest of character and reputation."
This story was originally published on Aug. 5, 2016.
There will be times in the upcoming inaugural season of the Northern Arizona Suns that the players on the Phoenix Suns’ D-League affiliate will be dragged down by minor-league frustrations and lose sight of big-league goals.
Staring back at them will be a reason to believe and focus.
Ty Ellis, the coach for the team's inaugural season, knows how to grind. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees while playing at Southern Nazarene, an NAIA school where stardom usually does not translate to a pro career. He paid his way from Dallas to the Portsmouth Invitational - without an invitation - armed with bio sheets, VHS tapes and dreams that he would not relinquish until he got the one person's attention that mattered.
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Even that produced only a D-League reserve role, leaving Ellis in need of three minicamps the next year just to get another summer-league spot. It took an injury for Ellis' break into Europe, where he played professionally for a decade. He then worked as an assistant coach in four D-League cities to get to the position where he officially became the Northern Arizona Suns head coach this week.
“When these guys in the D-League talk about the struggle and the grind, I really believe it,” Ellis, 38, said. “I understand believing in the process and being patient.”
Ellis had D-League head coaching interviews in previous years when he thought he was ready. He spent last season as lead assistant for the Suns' Bakersfield D-league team under Chris Jent, now Ohio State’s assistant coach, and said that made him feel more prepared than ever.
Ellis’ timing is special with the Suns taking full ownership of their affiliate and moving it to Prescott Valley, where Ellis said he expects the team will be assigned some or all of this year's Suns rookies – Dragan Bender, Marquese Chriss and Tyler Ulis.
Ellis will run a mirror system and use identical terminology to what Suns coach Earl Watson has in Phoenix so players can adjust easily after 95-minute drives between Prescott Valley and Phoenix.
This is the chance for which Ellis has prepared since making the most of his stay at Southern Nazarene, a university of about 1,600 students near Oklahoma City. The Dallas native finished his bachelor’s degree in sports management and a master’s degree in kinesiology during his collegiate playing career. He taught a health class to his freshman teammates as a senior, using that $800 semester pay and hustle work on alumni’s yards and garages to get to the Portsmouth (Va.) Invitational. It is a scouting event for second-tier college prospects just hoping to land one of the few spots remaining for the main draft combine or summer-league rosters.
Ellis sat outside the Portsmouth gymnasium in a spot where each NBA general manager or scout passed to reach the restroom or the parking lot. He handed each one a résumé and a tape from his backpack.
“How ya doin’?” Ellis recalled saying dozens of times. “My name is Ty Ellis. I wasn’t invited but I can play at this level. I was first-team All-American ..."
Thinking back, he said, “Everybody was looking at me like I was some crazy guy.”
By the end of the week, Ellis was frustrated for the NBA's lack of interest. He went to a local YMCA gym, where a chance encounter with Los Angeles Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak changed his life course. He convinced Kupchak to work him out on the spot and it led to an invitation to play on the Lakers’ summer league team.
“I’ve always been goal-oriented,” Ellis said. “I set small goals and I reach them.”
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His summer-league play landed him a roster spot with Huntsville, a team in the D-League’s inaugural season. But he played only 15.6 minutes per game so he nearly had to start over the following summer. It took attending three Dallas Mavericks minicamps before he earned another summer-league job. He did not play in Dallas' first two summer games but an injury opened a starting job and he led the team in points and assists to attract interest from a club in Girona, Spain.
“How much are you offering?” Ellis asked the team representative while standing under the gym bleachers in his uniform.
“Maybe $150,000,” he was told.
“I’ll sign right now.”
His European career lasted a decade in Spain, Germany, Turkey and Italy and he even played on the Georgian national team.
“I tell players all the time, ‘I was one cut away from getting a (non-basketball) job,” Ellis said.
That experience and being a lead assistant for Tulsa, Reno, Grand Rapids and Bakersfield readied him and gave him an appreciation for how intensive a coach’s work needs to be. His, wife, Ericka, makes his nomadic basketball journey through Europe and D-League stops possible with the flexibility to move annually as she runs a non-profit organization, Think.Love.Smart, that supports neglected or abused foster girls.
"I'm nothing without my wife," Ellis said.
Ellis will relocate from Dallas soon and join the Suns for late September training camp in Flagstaff, where some of this year's Northern Arizona Suns likely will participate. Ericka and their 5-year-old son, Tyler, will follow him to Arizona in November once he finds a Prescott Valley home. He also has a 14-year-old daughter, Jada, living with her mother in Oklahoma City.
“I will never forget this upcoming season,” Ellis said. “I feel obligated to not let Mr. McDonough (Suns GM Ryan McDonough), Earl, Bubba (Burrage, Northern Arizona GM) and Louis (Lehman, Northern Arizona assistant GM) down. I’m so hungry and humble at the same time. They gave me the responsibility to develop these guys on and off the court. I don’t take that lightly.”
Reach Paul Coro at paul.coro@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-2470. Follow him attwitter.com/paulcoro.