Tim Connelly spent his weekend traveling to Maryland for a meeting with the owner of the Washington Wizards, Ted Leonsis. There are disputing reports as to the details of the offer the Wizards presented Connelly if they indeed made one. But ultimately, Connelly chose to see through the NBA’s latest successful rebuild, citing loyalty and personal relationships as the deciding factors.
“First of all, Josh (Kroenke) is such great owner,” Connelly told the media when asked to articulate why he decided to stay. “We had this discussion months and months ago—if they were ever dumb enough to call me then I’d love to have the conversation. I had a really nice conversation with Mr. Leonsis and his staff. He is a fantastic owner, and I think a real visionary. I was very impressed by who he was and his thoughts for the team. That team’s going to be special quickly under his leadership. So we just had a conversation, it was not much more than that.
Loyalty and patience are such a rarity in professional sports, and that’s here in spades. Those things matter to me. It matters to me, the relationships that I have across this whole building; it’s not just specific to basketball operations. Business people, the ticket salespeople have been fantastic, the communications people. You kind of close your eyes and envision yourself somewhere else, and you think about those relationships, and I had a hard time envisioning myself elsewhere.”
Connelly also spoke on the season that just wrapped, as he would at any exit interview.
“Great season, really proud of everything we’ve accomplished. Can’t believe it’s been a couple of weeks since our last game here. We set some high goals when we broke camp in San Diego, return to the playoffs, home court, win the division—we were able to check all of those boxes. Fantastic series against San Antonio, the golden standard of NBA franchises. A heartbreaking loss to Portland in 7 games—which I thought, I’m far from objective, but I thought it was the most entertaining playoff series that I saw. Not an ounce of disappointment, all pride about the season.”
Watch the interview on our YouTube channel:
