Former Golden State Warriors guard Monta Ellis has recently opened up about the toughest opponent has had had to face in his entire career. It comes to no surprise that the first name that came to his mind is none other than Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant.

“I used to have some good one-on-ones in practice with [Baron Davis] and all of those guys,” Ellis said, via Alex Squadron of Slam Online. “In a game, it was Kobe. Oh my goodness. He hit crazy tough shots. He was always on the attack. He was in kill mode. If he ever laid back, don’t ever get comfortable with it. It’s like, he’s just waiting his turn. If you say something crazy, if he feels any kind of excitement, he turns up. It was unbelievable to guard him.”

Ellis was in the league between 2005 and 2017, and lucky for him, he was able to face the Lakers superstar during Bryant's prime. Ellis even recalled one specific game that served evidence for him that Kobe was not like anyone had had or ever will face on the basketball court.

“Oh, man. 2011. Me and him were going back and forth,” Ellis recalled. “He had like 30 something. I had like 40 something or close to that. They ended up winning because he hit a clutch shot at the end. And he hit it on me. There were two or three, maybe four possessions where he came down and scored, I came down and scored, he came back down and scored, I came back down and scored. We were going back and forth like that, for like 4-5 minutes straight.”

It's great to hear about Kobe's tenacity on the court from a peer who has had the opportunity to go toe-to-toe against him. Just recently, Bryant was announced to be one of the members of this year's Hall of Fame class, and Ellis' narrative here just goes to show how much Kobe deserves to be enshrined.