Mike Conley answered questions at his locker after the Phoenix Suns thumped the Minnesota Timberwolves 125-106 in Game 82. “I think we’re a team that we haven’t looked across the court,” a reserved Conley said,” and thought we’re not better than [them].”
That confidence in himself and the team comes from a long career of experience in almost every scenario. Conley’s experience will be crucial to the immense pressure the Wolves will be under in the postseason.
Conley is a grizzled playoff veteran. He has played 35.8 minutes per game in 78 games across ten NBA playoff appearances. Conley will make his 11th trip to the postseason this year and arguably faces the most pressure to succeed in a Wolves uniform. Minnesota is firmly standing at a crossroads. In one direction is playoff success and justification for staying in the luxury tax. The other is potential roster changes, including tearing apart some of Minnesota’s franchise foundation.
But this intense pressure is nothing new to Conley. With Conley as their point guard, the Memphis Grizzlies made the postseason seven straight years from 2010-11 to 2016-17. In 2016-17, the Grizzlies faced similar uncertainty as this year’s Wolves. That Memphis team was the tail end of the “Grit and Grind” era. After a quick six-game, second-round exit to the Los Angeles Clippers the year before, the Grizzlies changed coaches, firing Minnesota native Dave Joerger and replacing him with David Fizdale.
The Grizzlies doubled down on an aging roster built around Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph, and a spry 29-year-old Conley. Like the Wolves, Memphis added veterans to justify the cost of an expensive roster for the time. The Grizzlies entered the 2016-17 season with the fourth-highest team salary at $108.352 million, well above the $94.144 salary cap. Unfortunately, the Grizzlies limped through the regular season and finished 43-39, seventh in the West.
That was Conley’s first time at the crossroads, something he has endured multiple times in his career. In one scenario, the Grizzlies could succeed in the postseason and keep their roster together. In another, they could fall short and have to move on from foundational players. Memphis would then take the San Antonio Spurs to six games and lose to an ascending Kawhi Leonard in the first round, clarifying their next steps.
In that offseason, Memphis moved on from starter Tony Allen and let Randolph walk. They also moved on from Chandler Parsons and Vince Carter and focused on youth. Conley also suffered a left Achilles injury.
Just like that, the Grizzlies era was over. In 2017-18, they finished 22-60, 14th in the West. A year later, they finished 33-49 (12th place), and Memphis traded Conley to the Utah Jazz in the offseason.
But Conley ended up in a similar situation at age 34 in 2021-22. A year earlier, the Jazz were coming off a disappointing postseason loss to the Clippers in six games. Utah had powered through the regular season, securing the 1-seed in the West with a 52-20. But the Jazz finished as a fifth seed (49-33) in 2021-22, entering the postseason with a similar conundrum to the Wolves and Grizzlies. Years of postseason disappointment had led many Jazz fans and management to question their roster construction.
However, the Jazz doubled down around the Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell, and Conley core and went into the playoffs with two converging paths, adding veterans like the Grizzlies did years before. Conley was now facing the same foe that ended his success in Memphis. The Jazz were approaching the crossroads. The Jazz entered the season as the sixth highest-paid team in the league at $145.682 million, considerably above the $112.414 million salary cap. They would lose in a six-game series to the Dallas Mavericks in the first round, with Luka Doncic waving the team off the court in Utah.
Their fate would be sealed just like the Grizzlies before them, and they dismantled the team. The Jazz traded Gobert to Minnesota, sent Mitchell to Cleveland, and sold the rest of the meaningful roster pieces as spare parts. That included trading Conley to the Wolves in the following season.
Conley will enter the 2023-24 playoffs facing a familiar ultimatum. Win, and the team will stay together; lose, and major changes will be needed. After a 56-26 season, the Wolves stand at a crossroads. They are a team close to the luxury tax, with two paths in front of them. The good news for Minnesota and their hopes of keeping the roster together is that Conley has been through this before and is staying level-headed and confident.
“I think in every game, we feel like we can beat that opponent,” he said, “and this is no different.”
