The Minnesota Timberwolves have a lot of questions to answer after one of the most successful seasons in franchise history. One of the largest has already been addressed.
The Timberwolves have reached an agreement with president of basketball operations Tim Connelly on a restructured contract that ensures he will remain in Minnesota for the foreseeable future, team sources told The Athletic.
The deal includes Connelly waiving a buyout clause in his contract until after next season, sources said. With questions over the team’s ownership, Connelly could have opted out as soon as the Wolves were eliminated by Dallas in their first Western Conference Finals appearance in 20 years. But Connelly and his family wanted to stay in Minnesota and continue to build on the team’s success.
By delaying his contract option by one year, Connelly maintains flexibility as current owner Glen Taylor battles with Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez for control of the team. The two sides are set to begin arbitration in their contractual dispute over who owns the team, but that process is expected to take months to play out.
The lack of clarity over the long-term management of the franchise makes it difficult for those working on both the business and basketball sides of the organization to chart a course for a team that won 56 games in the regular season, swept to the Phoenix Suns in the first round and defeated the defending champion Denver Nuggets in the second round before losing to the Mavericks in the conference finals.
Connelly has praised the work with coach Chris Finch to build a squad worthy of contention in the Western Conference. Getting this deal done with Taylor will now allow the basketball operations department to fully focus on the Draft at the end of the month and free agency.
Getting Connelly to commit for what will be an important offseason while the team’s ownership is in flux was a crucial first step in trying to capitalize on their playoff run.
The Detroit Pistons emerged last month as a potential suitor for Connelly, and the Timberwolves were preparing to be made a lucrative offer by Pistons owner Tom Gores that they would have been hard-pressed to match. But when the Wolves beat the Nuggets in the second round, the Pistons decided to go ahead and sign Trajan Langdon from New Orleans rather than wait for the Timberwolves to be eliminated before approaching Connelly.
Even with the Pistons moving on, it was plausible to believe that another team could have changed course and gone after Connelly, who emerged as one of the league’s top executives, if he exercised his option and became a free agent. He played a major role in building the title-winning team in Denver before turning the long-struggling Timberwolves into a contender, building a reputation as a connector in both places.
Or Connelly could have left in the middle of the ownership fight and taken a year off. He would have immediately become one of the most coveted candidates for any vacancy on the league’s front office over the next calendar year.
Even with ownership issues, Connelly’s preference was to stay in Minnesota. That includes the possibility of signing another long-term deal after the ownership situation is resolved, team sources said.
At his season-ending press conference in May, Connelly said he and his family, including his wife, Negah, and their three children, felt like roots were starting to form in Minnesota.
“They have been a fantastic couple of years and hopefully we can make them a much longer couple of years,” he said then.
The transition from Denver, where they spent the previous nine seasons, was not perfect. The 2022-23 season was difficult, with the Rudy Gobert trade for Connelly producing disappointing returns in Year 1. But the payoff was much greater this season with Gobert reestablishing himself as one of the league’s elite defenders and the Connelly trade by Mike Conley and Nickeil Alexander-Walker played a huge role in the Timberwolves’ first playoff run since 2004.
As Connelly’s vision began to become clearer, fans embraced him. His public approval rating in Minnesota is high and the Timberwolves sold out the Target Center for the regular season and playoffs.
Continuity has been difficult to achieve for the Timberwolves over the past 20 years. Assuming Connelly and Finch finish next season in their positions, it would be the first time the Wolves have had the same head coach and general manager for three consecutive seasons since late 2004.
“For me, continuity and internal growth are the key to going far in this league,” Finch said last month. “We’ve experienced it ourselves: major changes take a while to settle and then develop.”
Keeping Connelly around right now is particularly important given how expensive payroll is about to become and how front offices are still figuring out how the new collective bargaining agreement will influence team building.
Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert will have max contracts, Jaden McDaniels’ salary will increase to more than $23 million and Gobert will be eligible for a contract extension following his fourth NBA Defensive Player of the Year award.
Connelly is a respected negotiator, both when it comes to contracts and trades. Had he left, the Timberwolves would have had to find a replacement amid an ownership fight and would have put that person on a thorny roster management path.
All indications are that both Wolves ownership factions are open to paying the luxury tax to keep the team competitive. For now, Taylor has the final say on any move that is or isn’t made, an authority that will likely extend throughout the draft and free agency as arbitration plays out.
Lore and Rodriguez were once given Taylor’s power to help make decisions, including signing Connelly away from Denver in 2022. Taylor ended that influence in March when he declared the deal to sell them the team was off. But Lore and Rodríguez were in every playoff game and remain confident they will prevail in their pursuit of the team. They are very proud of their role in hiring Connelly from the Nuggets.
Everyone below the main players involved in the fight has been caught in the middle of it, and now Connelly will play an important role in keeping them focused on the team so they don’t let this season’s leap forward go to waste. She’s already had success on that front. Before the season ended, senior vice president of basketball operations Matt Lloyd turned down the opportunity to take a higher-paying position in the Charlotte Hornets‘ front office to remain with the Timberwolves, team sources told The Athletic.
Conley, the 36-year-old point guard so critical to the team’s success, also decided to stay rather than test free agency. He signed a two-year extension that will pay him around $22 million, perhaps setting him up to retire with the Timberwolves.
Seeing staff and players stay in Minnesota even if they aren’t maximizing their compensation is a fairly new development in the history of this franchise.
Connelly believes the Timberwolves have a great opportunity to take advantage this season. Edwards is 22 years old and on a superstar trajectory. He will benefit from his role on Team USA at the Paris Olympics this summer and vowed to return next season with a better understanding of what it takes to play until the playoffs.
“I’ve never played that deep in a basketball season,” Edwards said after the Wolves were eliminated in Game 5 by Dallas. “So now I know, okay, in order to be dominant in the third round and if we get through this and finally get to the finals, I have to train like I’m going to go to the playoffs. .”
Towns is sure to see his name in all sorts of trade speculation throughout the summer as people discuss the exorbitant cost of keeping the team together and his disappointing shooting in the conference finals. But he professed his desire to return for a 10th season in Minnesota.
“I’m confident I’ll be able to be here with my brothers and continue what I love to do here at home,” Towns said at the end of the season. “So that’s the plan, nothing has changed on my end. I love this city. I love this organization. I love this city. “He has given me my life, me and my family.”
Naz Reid has become a folk hero in Minnesota. McDaniels took a step back offensively during the regular season, but was named to the NBA’s All-Defensive Second Team and was one of their best players in the playoffs.
“We believe we have the DNA of a championship-level team,” Connelly said in May. “It’s never easy.”
With his contract status addressed, Connelly can now fully move forward with plans for next season. He said at the end of the season that continuity is his preferred path, just as it was last season when they stuck with the Gobert-Towns roster construction despite considerable outside skepticism that the pairing could work.
“I think when you try it, you want more and more, so that will be something we discuss with the owners,” Connelly said. “It’s also something that we’re pretty aware of to a large extent, to be where we are, this will come with some scrutiny, and I think by all accounts ownership hasn’t given us any indication that we’re going to be anything else.” “How aggressive and trying to overcome one more obstacle.”
(Rudy Gobert and Tim Connelly photo: David Sherman/NBAE via /Keynote USA/Getty Images)
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