No deal with Nuggets exec
Baltimore native Connelly rejects offer to run ops
WASHINGTON — Tim Connelly will not take over as the Washington Wizards’ president of basketball operations, as many league insiders had expected. He will instead remain with the Denver Nuggets, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking.
Connelly was in Washington on Friday to meet with majority owner Ted Leonsis. As the president of the Nuggets’ basketball operations, Connelly did not want to formally interview. He did not visit Capital One Arena or the team’s practice facility in Southeast Washington, several people with knowledge of the meeting said. Connelly instead discussed the Wizards’ job at Leonsis’s residence.
During that session, Leonsis did not extend a contract offer, according to three people with an understanding of the situation. The Wizards presented an offer on Sunday, which Connelly turned down. Terms of the deal were not immediately known.
Connelly’s decision has more to do with seeing things through in Denver. Connelly has plenty of reasons to stay: a team with of the youngest rosters in the league that second-best record in the Western Conference, an all-star in Nikola Jokic and a strong relationship with team president Josh Kroenke.
Washington’s situation is not as stable. The next president of basketball operations will have a challenge in attempting to rebuild with impossible-to-move salaries already on the books.
The team has only six players signed for the 2019-20 season, including John Wall, who is expected to miss most of next year while rehabilitating his left Achilles’ tendon. Washington can add another player with the ninth overall pick in the June 20 NBA draft, but it has limited financial flexibility to find impactful free agents to pair with all-star Bradley Beal. The Wizards already have approximately $90 million tied up in those six players, which includes two traditional centers in Dwight Howard and Ian Mahinmi.
Even more, the next president will be tasked in reshaping the team’s culture that had lacked player accountability under Ernie Grunfeld, who was fired April 2 after 16 years in the top position.
For Connelly, who hails from a large family from the Baltimore suburb of Roland Park, the Wizards’ reclamation project would have still been a homecoming.
In 1996, Connelly earned an internship with the Wizards while attending Catholic University. The team hired Connelly as an assistant video coordinator after he graduated in 1999, and he stayed with the franchise, moving up to player personnel and scouting roles. Two other Connelly brothers, Joe and Pat, have also previously worked for the Wizards.