Career
A 6"10" center from Saint John"s University, Ellis set the Saint John's records for highest rebounding average in a season (165) and most rebounds in one game with 30. Ellis was selected by the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round (8th pick overall) of the 1962 National Basketball Association draft. The following season, Ellis was traded to the 76ers, who had an National Basketball Association-worst 73 losses in an 82-game season.
At the close of his National Basketball Association career 1976, Ellis had amassed career totals of 10,176 points and 8,709 rebounds.
Ellis was on the first Portland Trail Blazers team in 1970-1971, selected from Baltimore in the 1970 expansion draft. He was in the starting lineup for the Trail Blazers" inaugural game.
He was their third leading scorer (159 points per game) and the leading rebounder, averaging 12.3 per game, the third-best average in the Blazers’ first three decades. He continued playing basketball long after his professional career ended, including being a part of several Senior Masters Games national championship teams in Portland.
Ellis and his family settled in Portland, Oregon, while he played professional basketball.
He later entered the tire industry during his retirement and moved to Southern California to operate a tire store in Orange County. LeRoy Ellis" youngest son, Lee Christopher Ellis, was shot to death on a Los Angeles street in 1998 at age 19. Ellis died of prostate cancer on June 2, 2012, at the age of 72.