NEW YORK — Mike Conley Jr.’s choice of clothing for his trip to Madison Square Garden for a game against the Knicks wasn’t what his old coach Lionel Hollins had recommended right after he signed the largest contract in NBA history this summer. The Grizzlies point guard, with his five-year, $152.6 million deal, wore a white hoodie with a photo montage of Muhammad Ali on the chest.
“I told Mike after I congratulated him on the contract, “get on your knees and thank God you had the leverage to get this kind of money, and one other thing: You better put on a flak jacket,” Hollins said. “I told Mike, from here on that’s a big target on your chest.”
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After a wild summer of spending in the NBA, thanks to an unprecedented leap in the salary cap to a record $94 million, nobody is wearing a bigger bulls-eye than Conley. He knows it and as, he told Sporting News at his locker late after the Grizzlies fell to the Knicks, he’s fine with it.
Really.
“I’m already hearing about it,” he said.
During the Grizzlies loss, as Conley sat on the bench during this restricted-minutes phase of his season — he’s still recovering from an Achilles tendon injury that ended his 2015-16 season — he was serenaded with chants of “overrated.” That’s tame compared to what he might face down the road when he goes into some of the toughest arenas in the NBA, which he lists as Golden State, Toronto and, it almost goes without saying, Philadelphia.
“It doesn’t bother me, at all,” he said. “It’s part of it. I’m in a blessed situation. When I hear the talk, when I look on my phone and see messages on Twitter about it, it really pushes me, to be honest. So I know it’s going to come. There’s gonna be a lot of talk about it all season, no question. But it’s already here. I almost look forward to playing on the road, for that very reason.”
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If any player is cut out emotionally to deal with the fallout, Conley is the one. He just turned 29. Through thick and thin over the last nine seasons quarterbacking his perennial playoff team, he hasn’t shown any rabbit ears or the thin skin that Kevin Durant has been displaying as he’s started his new career with the Warriors.
“When it comes to the kind of person he is, I wish I had 15 Mike Conleys on the roster,” said Ed Stefanski, the Grizzlies’ vice president of player personnel. “He’s got both his feet on the ground. He’s as solid as you can get. He’s the real deal, on and off the court.”
But it’s his new deal, the one that blew the NBA away, that is going to present Mike Conley with the kind of challenges he’s never had to face before. His previous contracts made him rich to the tune of $54.5 million, but not necessarily famous. Nobody ever called Conley, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph “the big three” as they reached the 2013 Western Conference finals vs. the Spurs or even went up 2-1 on the Warriors in the 2015 West semifinals.
That was the series when Conley played with a broken bone in his face and wore a mask. The Griz’ trio won its share of games playing old-school, inside-out, grind-it-out hoops. The 3-point shot? What’s that? But as Conley is the first to admit, “I’ve never been a target. I’ve never messed around with any fans. I’ve never yelled at anybody.”
No, he isn’t Russell Westbrook.
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Playing a superstar position, Conley is steady but not flashy. He’s never made an All-Star Game, as everyone was quick to point out when he scored his new deal. You rank the top point guards on most scouts’ scorecards, and he doesn’t crack the first six. But he’s still a top 10 player at his position, meaning 20 teams would love to have him. He’s smart, can shoot, he knows how to set up teammates, makes the right plays and understands the balance required to play the position.
His previous salary reflected those qualities, as he made $9.5 million last season, not far off Stephen Curry’s current $11 million. Under the old cap, $70 million per team, he was widely viewed as a $15 million-a-year player. But with the cap jumping almost $25 mil per team, and with the Mavericks, Knicks and Spurs lining up for his services, Conley became an unrestricted free agent at just the right time. It was the perfect storm of the July spending spree, when teams handed out close to $2 billion, a record.
With Dallas ready to make him a max offer, Conley had the leverage he needed to get the best deal possible from the Grizzlies, a max-salary deal that gives him an extra $40 million compared to the Mavericks’ offer and pays him $26.5 million this season. Then he’ll make $28.5 in 2017-18, $30.5 in 2018-19 and $32.5 mil in 2019-20. He’ll top out at $34.5 million in year five, almost $1.5 million more than Michael Jordan’s best deal.
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Sure, by the old standard it’s crazy money, but Conley didn’t cause nearly the splash that Durant did by leaving Oklahoma City to form the NBA’s newest super-team in Oakland. Conley’s contract set the record for a deal covering more than two years, but it did not trigger nearly the reaction that came when LeBron James announced that he was re-upping with the Cavaliers for at least two more seasons, starting at $31 million this season, the second-highest single-season salary, after Jordan. Next season James will shatter Jordan’s record of $33 million (set in 1997-98, his final season with the Bulls) by taking home $33.3 million. James also has a third year, at his option, at $35.6 million, but by then he is expected to be enjoying the first $40-million-per-year salary via a new collective bargaining agreement.
James and Durant’s money, everyone understands those figures. Even Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert might privately concede that LeBron is underpaid. But Conley’s new money still takes one aback, as can be said about the near-max deal landed by the Raptors’ DeMar DeRozan. The chant Conley heard in the Garden isn’t that far off for a very good playmaker who will get you 16-17 points a night and five to six assists. The Grizzlies knew they had to bring back Conley, with Gasol committed long term and Randolph having a season to go on his deal.
At this stage, Memphis is still not a destination for prime free agents. Geography, as general manager Chris Wallace admits, works against his team. So owner Robert Pera was all-in, throwing more money at Conley than ever imagined and also ante-ing up $95 million over four years for Chandler Parsons. It’s called the price of doing business in Memphis.
“With the amount of money that was available because of the new cap, that’s just natural for people to look at, with all of these other new contracts and say, ‘It’s hard to figure out,’” Stefanski said. “It looks like guys were overpaid, but it’s all about the new flush of money that was available in the market place. I had one GM say to me about all of the inflated salaries, ‘Maybe Mike Conley got a lot of money, but at least you know that he can play.’”
But for the first time in his career, he’ll hear about it when he doesn’t play well.
“If he has a bad stretch of games, then he really will catch a lot of flak and he’ll have to deal with all the talk,” Hollins said on SiriusXM NBA Radio. “Because now, the expectations for Mike are going to be different. People are going to look at him and say, he’s getting all of this money, he should be shooting like a $30-million-a-year player. Why is he scoring 17 points a night and not 37? It’s all going to be about the money. It’s not going to change how Mike plays. But I don’t think he’s going to let it faze him, at all.”
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It’s not like Conley is going into this with his eyes closed. He knows what’s coming. He got his first taste of it on Saturday night as he went up against Derrick Rose, a fellow point guard who has faced criticism for many reasons, including his own massive contract. He’s now rich and famous for being the Player With The Biggest Contract In The History Of The NBA. First time Mike Conley has ever had this title, one he never saw coming in a million years.
“I’ll show people what I can do,” Conley said. “The way I look at it, this is a new opportunity for me. I can’t wait.”
