TIM CONNELLY
Title: General manager, executive vice president of basketball operations, Denver Nuggets
Career path: Joined the Washington Wizards as an intern, spent a decade working his way up to director of player personnel; spent three years with the New Orleans Pelicans as assistant general manager; hired by the Nuggets in June 2013
When Tim Connelly landed his job as an intern with the Washington Wizards in the mid-1990s, he set his sights simply on becoming a scout.
But after 10 years with the Bullets-turned-Wizards, and another three years with the New Orleans Pelicans, Connelly landed the Nuggets general manager’s job in 2013, far surpassing his early career goals.
“Being a general manager wasn’t the end game at all,” said the 38-year-old Connelly. “I didn’t have any delusions.”
Player evaluation is at the heart of Connelly’s skill set, and like his fellow new breed of general managers, he
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Connelly talks with Grant Jerrett during a pre-draft workout last year at Denver’s Pepsi Center.
Photo by: Getty Images |
approaches his job armed with a reliance on analytics and trusting his own eye.
“I’m a scout sitting in a general manager’s chair,” Connelly said.
His career path to the top basketball operations job with the Nuggets began with a shot in the dark. As a junior at Catholic University, Connelly, a Baltimore native whose basketball playing career ended at Towson High, blindly sent letters to East Coast NBA teams asking for a job.
His prior experience in sports had consisted simply of working concessions at Baltimore’s old Memorial Stadium and at Camden Yards, and working as a bus boy at a local ESPN Zone restaurant.
Connelly’s only response came from the Washington Wizards, who offered him an internship in 1996.
“I inputted reports and the best thing was that it allowed me into games free,” he said.
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“From Philly to Richmond, I was there.”
The Wizards eventually offered him a full-time job, as assistant video coordinator. Over the next decade, Connelly worked his way up with the organization, learning all aspects of the team’s basketball operations and eventually being named director of player personnel. The Pelicans hired him away in 2010 as assistant general manager and, last year, Nuggets President Josh Kroenke hired Connelly as general manager and executive vice president of basketball operations.
Connelly’s first season with the Nuggets was forgettable: The injury-riddled team struggled at 36-46 and missed the playoffs under new head coach Brian Shaw. This offseason, Connelly kept the core of the Nuggets roster mostly in place, traded for ex-Nuggets player Arron Afflalo, and extended the contract of Kenneth Faried in a reported four-year, $50 million deal.
“Tim is cut from a little different cloth,” Kroenke said. “He’s young but he’s been in basketball half of his life. Our philosophy is that we want partnerships with our players, and with Tim, we feel we have great partnerships. He uses analytics at all different levels. Tim’s saying is that we need educated mistakes. No one is going to bat 1,000 percent in the draft or in free agency.”
During his years in the NBA, Connelly has adopted a balanced approach in his job.
“It is unbelievably important that we appreciate how little we control,” he said. “We work as hard as anyone but we work as smart as possible and maintain some balance. The more singular focused you are, the worse the decision is.”
