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“Lucrative career paths” emerged on Wall Street, according to Connelly, who tried to keep Wallace from leaving the business of basketball by pitching him on a front office job with the Nuggets. Wallace has described it to The Post as “basically an intern” position. “I called him, like, ‘We have an entry level job. I don’t know where it’s gonna lead. Certainly not as well paid as some of the options you have in the business world. But I think you’d have a lot of fun,’ ” Connelly told The Post. “I said, ‘The only thing I can promise you is you’re gonna learn a lot and have a lot of fun. Above and beyond that, there’s no promises. I don’t know what your career might look like. But those two things are here, and they’ll be here.’ ”
The two men who are now tasked with bearing that superstar burden, longtime Nuggets executive Ben Tenzer and former Minnesota Timberwolves executive Jon Wallace, are seated on metal folding chairs to discuss their widely-celebrated first summer together as co-heads of the new Nuggets front office. There’s no mention of the seats being hot — not yet, anyways — but they’re well aware of the pressure that comes with this position. Truth be told, they see it as a privilege. “There’s an obligation to it,” said Wallace, a former Georgetown point guard who spent his last six seasons (three in Denver and three in Minnesota) with the architect of the Nuggets’ celebrated core, Minnesota Timberwolves president of basketball operations and former Nuggets president of basketball operations Tim Connelly. “The word ‘pressure’ just keeps coming up, (but) I don’t think of it as pressure. I think even when you sit and talk with Nikola a lot of times, he’s very upfront about what he needs. He (gives) that reassurance that you’re on the same wavelength of him in terms of seeing the game from his perspective, and seeing what the team needs to be successful. He’s so unselfish, so you want to take advantage of that white hot space.”
As it turns out, Wallace wasn’t the only familiar face the Kroenkes pursued in the offseason either. League sources say the Nuggets courted Tim Connelly’s brother, Joe Connelly, for a front office position before that outside interest led to him being elevated to Minnesota’s vice president of player personnel role. Joe, similarly to Wallace, worked as a pro personnel scout and player development coach for the Nuggets before leaving with his brother, and Wallace, for Minnesota.
During the draft combine that year, the Nuggets interviewed Hyland, and at one point Hyland said he “rapped one of my songs for them.” Ever since that moment, he said, he and Connelly formed a connection. “We just had a different connection, a real close connection,” Hyland said. “... Just that belief he has in me. He’s always had my back. That’s a guy I’m really appreciative of. Every time I see Tim, it’s always a big hug. I’m very thankful for him just believing in me.”
“I learned patience. I learned how to go about life every day. … My work ethic was already up there, but just seeing how hard they work, even as Hall of Famers already, and them being established already, still getting it working every day, staying late after [practice],“ he said. “... I learned a lot, but now I feel like, as it turned me into a man more, I matured more, and I don’t take things for granted.”
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Jon Krawczynski: Tim Connelly on Anthony Edwards: “We think he’s not only a great player but can be one of the greatest of players of all time.”
If the trade deadline is approaching and the PG situation isn’t getting better, what trade(s) would you pursue if you were Tim Connelly? — @nrcslim Jon Krawczynski: It is hard to put a name on that right now because we don’t know which teams will be playing well and which teams will be stumbling. What I do know is that if point guard is not solidified and the rest of the team looks primed for another deep playoff run, Connelly will not hesitate to pull the trigger on a big trade. That is the way he’s built these Wolves, and it won’t stop now. Maybe the Spurs would part with De’Aaron Fox if things aren’t going well there, though the money would give me pause. Maybe one of the Jones brothers could be had in Chicago or Orlando.
Tim Connelly’s contract had an opt-out clause for this summer, meaning he could have exercised the option and become a free agent, making himself perhaps the most sought-after lead executive on the market. Or he could have opted out and negotiated a new contract with the Timberwolves, getting a raise after helping build a team that has reached heights this franchise has never before seen. Instead, he is opting in on the original five-year deal he signed in 2022. That means he is under contract for two more seasons with the Wolves, team sources told The Athletic.
It is a significant win for the Timberwolves. Connelly is widely considered one of the best front office leaders in the league. There were at least four teams that approached him over the last two summers to see if he would consider leaving the Wolves, team and league sources told The Athletic. But Connelly rebuffed every one of them. He also declined to use that interest as leverage for a new deal, a move many in his shoes likely would have made.
In the quiet of an empty gymnasium at a nearly century-old private high school in the Chicago suburbs, a long-armed, wide-eyed, 18-year-old Frenchman who has only been playing basketball for four years leapt into the Minnesota Timberwolves’ hearts — on the third try. After the kind of old-school, private, clandestine pre-draft workout that has increasingly become a thing of the past in this highly orchestrated, controlled era of the NBA Draft preparation, Wolves president of basketball operations Tim Connelly asked Joan Beringer to dunk from the free-throw line.
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The workout took place on June 21 at the end of what had been an exhausting week for the 6-foot-11, 235-pound prospect. Beringer had already had workouts in San Antonio, Memphis and with the Bulls in Chicago that week, and his legs were feeling a little rubbery by the time the Timberwolves scrambled to get an up-close look at him less than a week before the draft. On the first two attempts to dunk it from the stripe, his legs just weren’t quite there. “I was tired,” Beringer said with a chuckle. “The last one I said, I need to finish a good workout. And that was it.”
“A lot of the NBA stuff is so hyper-sanitized,” said Joe Connelly, the team’s director of scouting. ”This had an authentic, almost grimy feel to it that just felt natural.” As Beringer went through a series of drills aimed at giving the Wolves an idea of his potential, from ballhandling to one-on-one games and even to some midrange jumpers, the Wolves steadily grew more enamored with a player they had been intrigued by from afar for the better part of a year. “I remember just catching an eye with Tim and both of our eyebrows were kind of cocked, like what’s going on here, man,” Connelly said.
Chris Hine: Tim Connelly on trading pick 31: “It was really curious how agent driven the 2nd round became. We called players left & right, and there was 20 deals done before the draft started. It was interesting. No. 31 is fun, but it’s probably not as fun as we thought was gonna be.”
Jon Krawczynski: Connelly said moving down tonight was partly due to the roster's depth at this point and partly due to making sure they gave themselves leeway to stay under the 2nd apron. The repeater penalties for the 2nd apron are draconian. Wolves trying to avoid it.