Tim Connley

[KG4Ever]

I'm overall pleased with the decision to bring in Connelly, though I was happy with Gupta. Given that Connelly apparently liked Hartenstein enough to bring him to Denver, I hope he can sway him to come to Minnesota. I also like that he drafted Nurkic and probably sees value in both Hartenstein and Nurkic, which are two of my favorite free agent targets. I also think one of the wild cards in the draft is Nikola Jovic and I trust that Connelly having drafted Nikola Jokic has done a thorough evaluation of him and if he sees a special talent there, he won't let him get past pick 19.

[KG4Ever]

Its kind of interesting that Connelly joins the Wolves roughly one month ahead of the draft. While the Wolves under Gupta were collecting intel on draft prospects, Connelly was in Denver collecting intel and creating a big board. Connelly essentially has two scouting staffs feeding him intel for this draft. Does he lean more on Denver scouts, who he is more familiar with, or the Wolves scouts, who will now report to him? Denver can't be too happy losing Connelly ahead of the draft. Didn't Rosas forbid Gupta from leaving as he was afraid of losing draft intel? I don't know if there are any rules that prevent a team from poaching an exec or scout ahead of the draft and using draft intel learned as a member of the former team. I don't know if there are confidentiality or NDAs that protect draft info or any of it is consider a protected trade secret. I just wondered if there are some safeguards as otherwise I think you'd see more predraft poaching, which in this case, I have no complaints. :)

[Q-is-here]

Its kind of interesting that Connelly joins the Wolves roughly one month ahead of the draft. While the Wolves under Gupta were collecting intel on draft prospects, Connelly was in Denver collecting intel and creating a big board. Connelly essentially has two scouting staffs feeding him intel for this draft. Does he lean more on Denver scouts, who he is more familiar with, or the Wolves scouts, who will now report to him? Denver can't be too happy losing Connelly ahead of the draft. Didn't Rosas forbid Gupta from leaving as he was afraid of losing draft intel? I don't know if there are any rules that prevent a team from poaching an exec or scout ahead of the draft and using draft intel learned as a member of the former team. I don't know if there are confidentiality or NDAs that protect draft info or any of it is consider a protected trade secret. I just wondered if there are some safeguards as otherwise I think you'd see more predraft poaching, which in this case, I have no complaints. :)

He may have an agreement that he can't share any of the intelligence gathered while with Denver with his new associates in the Wolves organization. In other words, the Wolves scouting department will need to independently make their recommendations to Tim based on their own work, with no intelligence sharing from Tim.

But still...he's the final decision maker and will use his aggregate intelligence gathered from both organizations to make an informed draft day call. Not sure how they can prevent that from happening without thought control or otherwise him recusing himself from the Wolves draft entirely, neither of which seems realistic!

[Monster]

Its kind of interesting that Connelly joins the Wolves roughly one month ahead of the draft. While the Wolves under Gupta were collecting intel on draft prospects, Connelly was in Denver collecting intel and creating a big board. Connelly essentially has two scouting staffs feeding him intel for this draft. Does he lean more on Denver scouts, who he is more familiar with, or the Wolves scouts, who will now report to him? Denver can't be too happy losing Connelly ahead of the draft. Didn't Rosas forbid Gupta from leaving as he was afraid of losing draft intel? I don't know if there are any rules that prevent a team from poaching an exec or scout ahead of the draft and using draft intel learned as a member of the former team. I don't know if there are confidentiality or NDAs that protect draft info or any of it is consider a protected trade secret. I just wondered if there are some safeguards as otherwise I think you'd see more predraft poaching, which in this case, I have no complaints. :)

It's an interesting question.

It seems that Connelly's departure was about as chill as possible. It seems that Denver is basically just rolling with Booth and the guys they already have. Meanwhile ownership might even save a few million not having to pay Connelly. The Wolves pick at #19 and Denver at #21 and the Wolves actually have Denver's 2nd round pick from the Butler trade. Does Connelly know what the Nuggets are gonna do in the draft? I'm sure he has some pretty good intel but apparently ownership doesn't really care that much about that. They clearly have a lot of confidence in the people they already have.

When Rosas wanted to hire Gupta the Pistons ended up going into the draft with multiple picks. I really hope Gupta didn't have much input into the players Detroit picked in that draft...

if I was an owner I'm not sure I would want a GM to stay for a key thing like the draft when I knew they were eventually going to leave. It seems unlikely they would sabotage anything but that would be kinda weird. It also sounds like the Wolves had made contact with Connelly more than just a couple days ago and he did go over to visit Jokic so it's not like they tried to get him right before the draft. Both Denver and Minnesota's seasons ended about a month previously so this seems like reasonable timeline.

Memphis has 3 total picks including 2 late 1st round picks and a 2nd and they let Steve Senior go although that was for a promotion and he wasn't a top guy anyway. Still the Wolves probably have some good info on how other teams may value some players in the draft. Will someone hire the guy the Wolves let go? Apparently the Wolves were ok moving on. I think sometimes teams get too paranoid about information getting out. Easy for me to say sitting here though. Lol

[FNG]

Connelly seems like a smart guy, so I'm guessing (and hoping) he will have a lot of discussions with Finchy about which players he wants to build around and best fit his coaching philosophy. I agree with the consensus here that KAT will be super maxed and Ant will be a major focus going forward. But I'm guessing one of the first questions he will have for the coach is why he didn't trust DLO enough to play him very much in the 4th quarter of an elimination game. How that conversation goes should have a lot to do with Connelly's off-season or trade deadline moves.

[Lipoli390]

Its kind of interesting that Connelly joins the Wolves roughly one month ahead of the draft. While the Wolves under Gupta were collecting intel on draft prospects, Connelly was in Denver collecting intel and creating a big board. Connelly essentially has two scouting staffs feeding him intel for this draft. Does he lean more on Denver scouts, who he is more familiar with, or the Wolves scouts, who will now report to him? Denver can't be too happy losing Connelly ahead of the draft. Didn't Rosas forbid Gupta from leaving as he was afraid of losing draft intel? I don't know if there are any rules that prevent a team from poaching an exec or scout ahead of the draft and using draft intel learned as a member of the former team. I don't know if there are confidentiality or NDAs that protect draft info or any of it is consider a protected trade secret. I just wondered if there are some safeguards as otherwise I think you'd see more predraft poaching, which in this case, I have no complaints. :)

I was thinking about that too, KG. I guess there really aren't many secrets these days when it comes to evaluating draft prospects. The only thing Connelly brings with him is perhaps some really good insight into who the Nuggets might be targeting in the draft or what sorts of draft-day deals they might be pondering. But it's too early for the Nuggets to have formulated any final conclusions.

Beyond that I think there's a level of trust. It sounds like Connelly is liked and highly respected by Nuggets ownership and around the League. That tells he he's earned a high level of trust with Nuggets' ownership and I suspect that they trust Connelly won't betray that trust by trying to sabotage any of the Nuggets' plans he's aware of -- for example, drafting a guy at 19 that Connelly knows Denver wants only for the purpose forcing Denver to trade up to get him.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Connelly seems like a smart guy, so I'm guessing (and hoping) he will have a lot of discussions with Finchy about which players he wants to build around and best fit his coaching philosophy. I agree with the consensus here that KAT will be super maxed and Ant will be a major focus going forward. But I'm guessing one of the first questions he will have for the coach is why he didn't trust DLO enough to play him very much in the 4th quarter of an elimination game. How that conversation goes should have a lot to do with Connelly's off-season or trade deadline moves.

Was it a matter of trust, as you put it, or was Chris Finch simply riding the hotter hand in that particular moment? We stress sample sizes here, no? Is one game, or even one playoff series, enough to tell you whether a coach trusts or values a player? Rational minds would say no.

I think too much has been made out of that decision from Finch-- similar to how fans and pundits questioned Ben Simmons' stardom over his infamous decision to pass up a layup against Atlanta last year. Sometimes shit happens. Guys have a bad game or a bad series. Guys get benched. The game moves on. It happens every year, including this year with more players than just D'Angelo Russell.

Additionally, we have this from Finch himself:

"We still think the fit is great," Finch said of Russell. "His skill set, his playmaking, all that stuff hasn't changed. We've just got to figure out maybe some different sets or structures that kind of accentuate those things too. I could've done a better job of trying to get him into the series a little bit more with some plays for him maybe off the ball."

One could easily deduce that Finch values Russell and feels partly responsible for his struggles against Memphis. The quote above certainly sounds like shared blame to me. The overall point, however, is that reaching a roster-changing conclusion based on a handful of games, let alone a singular decision, is illogical. More likely, Tim Connelly and Finch will exchange ideas on how to improve the roster without completely undoing the progress the team made this past season.

[Lipoli390]

Connelly seems like a smart guy, so I'm guessing (and hoping) he will have a lot of discussions with Finchy about which players he wants to build around and best fit his coaching philosophy. I agree with the consensus here that KAT will be super maxed and Ant will be a major focus going forward. But I'm guessing one of the first questions he will have for the coach is why he didn't trust DLO enough to play him very much in the 4th quarter of an elimination game. How that conversation goes should have a lot to do with Connelly's off-season or trade deadline moves.

Yes, I would think Connelly will ask that question and others in relation to DLO. I like that Connelly comes here with no ties to, or pre-existing biases for or against, any of our current players except perhaps Beasley. I don't want the Wolves to trade any of our players simply for the sake of trading them. I don't believe in addition by subtraction. Connelly will likely ask Finch the question your posed about DLO. But Connelly will also see that DLO, along with Beasley, really helped this team win more games last season than it's won in nearly 20 years. Moreover, they're both still young and their contracts are both team-friendly - DLO's as an expiring contract and Beasley's as reasonable annual salary a with a team option after next season. Those two players, with their contracts, have considerable value as trade assets and as players to keep on the Wolves roster next season.

[kekgeek]

Just in general I'm curious what Beasley and Connelly relationship is. Connelly has traded him once and offered him a solid contract but Beasley felt like he was worth more (he got more). Just an interesting side plot

[Lipoli390]

Just in general I'm curious what Beasley and Connelly relationship is. Connelly has traded him once and offered him a solid contract but Beasley felt like he was worth more (he got more). Just an interesting side plot

Yes, an interesting subplot. My guess is that he sees Beasley as a valuable player who can help a team win with his three-point shooting and other abilities. But I also suspect he'll be open to moving Beasley for the right return.