CHICAGO – Tim Connelly, a long-rumored target of the Washington Wizards, will talk with majority owner Ted Leonsis and consultant Mike Forde on Friday in Washington about the team’s vacant president of basketball operations job, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Connelly, the top basketball executive of the Denver Nuggets who got his start in basketball with the Wizards, had previously told close associates that he did not want to interview for the job – for myriad reasons, but not out of disinterest in returning to Washington. Only a serious meeting would prompt Connelly to leave Chicago, where he was attending the NBA combine to evaluate and interview draft prospects, to discuss the job with Leonsis and Forde.
The official pursuit of Connelly, however, won’t come cheap for the Wizards.
Connelly, 41, remains under contract with the Nuggets, who were eliminated in the Western Conference semifinals by Portland. Although Washington’s is the only job that would tempt him to leave Denver – a fact known by team president Josh Kroenke – a person close to Connelly speculated he would not leave for a deal lower than $4 million annually for five years.
Connelly is the fifth known candidate for the job. The Wizards have conducted second interviews with current interim Tommy Sheppard, Danny Ferry and Troy Weaver. Shortly after Gersson Rosas’ first interview with the Wizards in late April, he was hired by the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Since Connelly became the Nuggets’ vice president of basketball operations in 2013, and later earning a promotion to the top job, the team has gradually improved from winning 30-plus games to contending in the stacked Western Conference. Last season, Denver finished 54-28 and came one game short of advancing to the conference finals.
Still, the meeting with the Wizards appears to have been an inevitability. According to a person with knowledge of the situation, Connelly had previously talked with Forde, the consultant who has assisted Leonsis with the search and franchise reboot after the April 2 firing of Ernie Grunfeld.
Connelly’s roots in the area run deep. Originally from West Baltimore, he attended Catholic University. After graduation in 1999, the Wizards hired Connelly as an assistant video coordinator and he stayed with the franchise, moving up to player personnel and scouting roles before leaving in 2010 for the New Orleans Pelicans.
The three other remaining candidates all have local ties. Ferry, who had a second interview for the job on Wednesday, is the son of Bob Ferry, the Washington Bullets’ general manager from 1973 to 1990. Weaver, the Oklahoma City Thunder executive, attended high school in Washington, as well as Prince George’s Community College in Maryland. Sheppard, who has been with the Wizards since 2003, has served as the team’s president of basketball operations for the past month and a half.
