Snapshot
- Team / role: Brooklyn Nets reserve guard; spot starter candidate.
- 2025-26 Cleveland segment: 29 games, 24.8 MPG, 8.3 PTS, 2.8 REB, 1.6 AST, 1.3 STL and 0.8 BLK on 49.1% shooting. NBA career statistics
- Contract: two years and a reported $18 million; the deal became official July 6. NBA.com, updated 2026-07-07
2026-27 projection
| GP | MPG | FG% | FT% | 3PM | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 72 | 23 | .470 | .810 | 1.7 | 9.2 | 3.0 | 1.8 | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.9 |
Fantasy translation
- Nine-category: top-110-to-155 upside because steals, blocks, threes and low turnovers can beat his scoring rank.
- Points: mostly a deep-league player unless defensive stats are heavily rewarded.
- Dynasty: useful specialist, but his age-26 season and low creation ceiling cap appreciation.
Role, floor and ceiling
Ellis fits beside any of Mikel Brown Jr., Egor Dëmin or Nolan Traoré because he does not need the ball. Floor: 18 minutes and waiver-wire irrelevance if Brooklyn prioritizes Drake Powell. Ceiling: 27 minutes, two threes and two combined stocks, a top-100 category profile.
Correction 2026-07-18: floor raised from 16 minutes to 18. The contract is the reason — two years and $18 million fully guaranteed, roughly $9 million a year with a mutual option in year two, which is Brooklyn's second-largest 2026 free-agent commitment and the same structure they gave Wagner. A mutual option is a two-sided bet on the player being worth keeping. That does not guarantee a large role, but it makes a true 16-minute season the tail rather than the floor. ESPN, 2026-07
Risk monitor
He missed time in 2025-26 with a fractured left index finger, and Cleveland later dropped him from its playoff rotation. The larger Brooklyn risk is simply too many guards and wings. Athlon identified him as an underpriced category target if the move creates minutes; treat that as attributed analysis. Athlon Sports, 2026-07-09
Career record
Pre-NBA: Florida SouthWestern State College (NJCAA), two seasons, then Alabama, two seasons. He averaged 8.3 points, 3.0 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.5 steals and 0.6 blocks on .442/.291/.767 as a juco freshman in 2018-19, then 18.1 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 2.1 steals and 1.2 blocks on .536/.401/.807 in 2019-20 — Alabama's own bio lists that scoring average as 18.7 — and was a second-team NJCAA All-American and Suncoast Player of the Year. At Alabama he was a reserve in 2020-21 (5.5 points, 4.0 rebounds, 1.1 steals, .504/.389/.723) on the SEC regular-season and tournament champions, then started all 33 games in 2021-22 for 12.1 points, 6.1 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.9 steals in 30.9 minutes on .439/.366/.881, making the SEC All-Defensive Team. Draft: undrafted, 2022; signed a two-way contract with Sacramento on July 2, 2022.
| Season | Age | Team | GP | MPG | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | 3PM | FG% | FT% | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | 22 | SAC | 16 | 4.4 | 1.5 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.4 | .438 | .571 | 0.1 |
| 2023-24 | 23 | SAC | 57 | 17.2 | 5.4 | 2.2 | 1.5 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 1.2 | .461 | .743 | 0.6 |
| 2024-25 | 24 | SAC | 80 | 24.4 | 8.3 | 2.7 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 0.8 | 1.7 | .489 | .849 | 0.9 |
| 2025-26 | 25 | SAC/CLE | 72 | 20.5 | 6.7 | 1.9 | 1.0 | 1.2 | 0.6 | 1.3 | .440 | .729 | 0.6 |
| Career | 225 | 19.9 | 6.6 | 2.1 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 0.6 | 1.4 | .465 | .778 | 0.7 |
The 2025-26 row is a combined line. Ellis went to Cleveland on February 1, 2026 in the three-team deal that sent him and Dennis Schröder to the Cavaliers and Dario Šarić to Chicago while Sacramento took back De'Andre Hunter. The two halves look nothing alike: 43 games in Sacramento at 17.6 minutes, 5.6 points, 1.3 rebounds, 0.6 assists, 1.1 steals, 0.5 blocks, 1.2 threes on .397/.625, then 29 games in Cleveland at 24.8 minutes, 8.3 points, 2.8 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.3 steals, 0.8 blocks, 1.3 threes on .491/.816.
Fantasy history: 2024-25 is the one season with a published finish — roughly a ninth-round per-game value in standard nine-category leagues, which is top-100-to-110 territory, and his four-game starting run to close that year produced 14.0 points, 2.8 threes, 4.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 3.0 steals, a short stretch that graded inside the top 40. The 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2025-26 finishes are not verifiable from an archived season-end rater and are left unranked rather than estimated. The shape is consistent across all four years: steals, blocks, threes and a near-zero turnover rate carry the profile while scoring, rebounds and assists sit well below replacement. Points leagues rate him materially worse than category leagues, because the defensive counting stats that make him useful are worth little there and his usage is too low to compensate.
Durability: 16, 57, 80, 72. The 16-game rookie year and much of the 57-game second season were roster mechanics rather than health — he was on a two-way through February 9, 2024 and spent 2022-23 mostly in Stockton, where he averaged 16.8 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.6 steals on .517/.436 across 23 G League games. He played a career-high 80 in 2024-25. In 2025-26 he tweaked a thumb against Milwaukee in early January but stayed available, then suffered a non-displaced volar plate avulsion fracture of the left index PIP joint, confirmed by X-rays after the February 25 game at Milwaukee; Cleveland ruled him out on February 27 and listed him game-to-game after that. He later fell out of the Cavaliers' playoff rotation, which is a role decision rather than an availability one. There is no chronic injury in the file.
Trajectory: The rise through 2024-25 was almost entirely minutes — 4.4 to 17.2 to 24.4 — with the rate profile stable underneath, and the 2025-26 drop is best read the same way in reverse. Per 36 minutes he produced 12.2 points, 4.0 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 2.2 steals, 1.2 blocks and 2.5 threes in 2024-25 against 11.8, 3.3, 1.8, 2.1, 1.1 and 2.3 in 2025-26, so the counting-stat engine did not break; what broke was the shot, and specifically the Sacramento half, where he shot .397 from the floor and .625 from the line before recovering to .491 and .816 in Cleveland. Steals have sat between 1.1 and 1.5 and blocks between 0.5 and 0.8 in all three real seasons, which is the unusual part — guard-sized block rates rarely hold that steadily, and his did across three coaching staffs. He turns 27 in February, so there is no aging story here in either direction; the entire 2026-27 range is a minutes question. Brooklyn paying him $9 million a year is a mild signal that they intend to play him, but the roster in front of him is the constraint, and his history says he needs about 24 minutes before the peripherals clear standard-league thresholds.
Career sources: ESPN career stats · StatMuse season-by-season per game · Keon Ellis (Wikipedia) · Alabama Athletics bio · CBS Sports — Ellis/Hunter trade grades · Chronicle-Telegram — left index finger fracture · Fantasy Six Pack — 2024-25 nine-cat value
Open questions
- Is Ellis sixth man, ninth man, or outside the development-first rotation?
- Can his Cleveland block rate persist at guard?
- Does Brooklyn use him as the primary point-of-attack defender?