Veteran point guard Mike Conley intends to re-sign with the Timberwolves after he clears waivers, sources tell ESPN’s Shams Charania (Twitter link).
Conley was traded twice this week. Minnesota originally sent him to Chicago in a salary-dump deal on Tuesday, then the Bulls flipped him to Charlotte along with Coby White. The Hornets subsequently cut him.
NBA rules prohibit a player who is traded and then waived to immediately re-sign with the team that traded him away. However, that restriction doesn’t apply to the Timberwolves because Conley was traded twice. Once he clears waivers and becomes a free agent, he’d be ineligible to re-sign with the Bulls, the last team that traded him away, but nothing would be standing in the way of a reunion with Minnesota.
Conley, who is in his 19th NBA season, became the Wolves’ starting point guard when they acquired him at the 2023 trade deadline and maintained that role through last season. However, he ceded his starting role to Donte DiVincenzo this fall and has averaged a career-low 18.5 minutes per night in 44 outings (nine starts) so far this season. His 4.4 points and 2.9 assists per game are also career lows, as is his 32.2% field goal percentage.
Despite Conley’s declining production, there were rumblings ahead of the trade deadline that the team wasn’t eager to move the 38-year-old due to his locker room leadership. With that in mind, getting the opportunity to move off of the guard’s $10.8MM expiring contract and then bring him back on a prorated minimum-salary deal represents the best of both worlds for the Wolves.
Minnesota has two open spots on its 15-man roster following its deadline moves, so no corresponding move will be necessary to create room for Conley.
According to Charania, the two sides are working on the timing of the deal. Conley will clear waivers on Saturday afternoon, but the Wolves may not re-sign him immediately since doing so would increase their projected luxury tax penalty and move them closer to the first tax apron.
That is quite the loophole that I’m sure wont be explored for exploitation in the future.
Considering it requires a player to be traded twice in two separate transactions idk how you think it can be easily exploited
Um, you ask the team he is traded to first what their plans are? A player is his age group and production with a $10M+ salary is an easy guess as to what his eventual outcome would be.
The salary dumping age that comes along with the tax aprons is just todays version of cutting players.
Ok, and what happens when an unexpected team offers a 2nd for him or wants him in a bigger trade? The first trade is the easy part teams have no control in the second trade.
I tend to agree with the original commenter.
The NBA is ripe with potentiality of this exploitation, although, I don’t have an issue with it.
With a punitive luxury tax with double aprons, contract size (for the purposes of dealmaking) become the commodity in lieu of the player.
If a useful or veteran player is less valuable than their contract’s fungible value, and the initial trade is to alleviate roster constriction then the player will be traded to a team with financial or goal (teams that don’t care about winning) flexibility. Therefore that team will not retain said player.
The poor performing team that inherits the contract will then have a fungible asset to trade again for their own future goals, especially since they stand to gain no benefit from the player who still retains value (Conley).
The reason this is especially prescient today, is that free agency has been largely nullified due to the restrictive nature of the The CBA.
It’s something to watch until this CBA expires, and I’m sure a lot of owners and players will be doing a rain dance when they get the opportunity to rework this albatraoss of an agreement.
@Black Ace57: Your thinking is above board. However, it’s easy to imagine handshake deals between teams and this getting pulled off with some extra 2nd rounders floating around to facilitate it.
Let me rephrase, rct. Do I think this can happen again in the future? Yes. Do I think this is some easy to repeat exploit? No. It’s kind of like when teams in sports trade players and then immediately resign them in the offseason. It happens on rare occasion but I don’t think it’s some strategy to take advantage of.
An example in my mind of an exploit is what used to be allowed in hockey. Teams would have a star player get injured, put them on LTIR the rest of the season, use the temp cap space for trading for a good player at the deadline, then magically the injured player heals the moment the playoffs start and they have a roster way over the cap.
I can’t see this suddenly being a frequent occurrence because the player has to have a significant salary (to clear waivers), be aging (limiting their market) or not that good (limiting their market even more), and require a subsequent trade, not just being waived (no guarantee the acquiring organization will trade them or want to be rid of the contract and no guarantee another organization wants to acquire him via trade from them).
I don’t think it’s that easy to exploit. It kind of requires a perfect storm. And even so, it shouldn’t significantly impact a team’s outlook, so is it that important to address? Getting Conley back is great for the locker room but it’s not like he’s going to get significant minutes and impact Minnesota’s on-court performance.
These are my thoughts exactly. And I think requiring two trades for it to happen and considering the quality of player this applies to, I don’t think this is some problem for the league to solve.
“Honey, I’m home!”
great news
Not good news for the Wolves, now Finch will play him 15 minutes a night cause hes his blankie.
I thought he was going to the warriors?
Awesome…….He still has some gas in the tank!! A true pro whose career is very much coming to a close, but can still contribute to help this team get deep into playoffs. 8-12 minutes a night he can lead this team!
That was quick. Great for Minny. More depth …
Better be ready for TWolves in playoffs.
Lmao
With Ayo now, hoping this is a player-coach/team chemistry move. He’s cooked. Wonderful guy, great career. Please no rotation minutes Finchy!
Welcome back Mike! Great for the locker room.
Fantastic addition who will bring excellent veteran leadership to Minnesota. I wonder if anyone has made a photoshop edit of Conley in a Wolves jersey?
Conley is flat out a good guy. I don’t expect he’s on anyone’s HOF list, but what a pleasure to watch that guy play all these years.
A testament to his character- he has only played for 3 teams in this 19 years
The machinations don’t matter, this is a loophole that should be closed. The end result is the wolves are able to keep the same player while shedding his salary. This outcome is what the CBA aimed to prevent. How it is achieved is irrelevant.
The idiocy of Silver & Co. on display again. The reason the NBA has for prohibiting a released player like Conley from signing with the team that traded him before his release is that it works a salary cap circumvention. NBA needs to prohibit this or allow it, I can see it either way (the released players are after all free agents). But whether its prohibited or not shouldn’t turn on differences in form that have no substance. That’s a clown show.
The salary matching exception to the salary cap exists to allow a team over the cap to nevertheless acquire player A so long as it’s in exchange for its existing player B, and the salaries match. Not to both acquire A (using B’s salary) and still keep B.