The Minnesota Timberwolves have agreed to a five-year, $40 million contract with Denver Nuggets President Tim Connelly to lead basketball operations, sources told The Athletic. Connelly will also have an ownership stake as part of his new contract.
He met formally with Timberwolves minority owners Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez in recent days and then flew to Minnesota on Saturday to meet majority owner Glen Taylor.
The Nuggets have made the playoffs in each of the last four seasons under Connelly, including the Western Conference finals in 2020. He drafted Nikola Jokić in the second round and hired coach Michael Malone in 2015.
Denver general manager Calvin Booth is now expected to assume the lead basketball operations role for the franchise, sources said.
Connelly got his start in the NBA as a basketball operations intern for the Washington Wizards in 1996 and worked his way up through the scouting ranks before joining the front office with the New Orleans Hornets in 2010. He joined the Nuggets in 2013 after Masai Ujiri left for Toronto.
Sachin Gupta ran the Timberwolves' basketball operations for the last season after Gersson Rosas was fired just days before training camp in September.
Read more about Connelly's hiring here.
(Photo: Hyoung Chang / MediaNews Group / The Denver Post via Getty Images)
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Timberwolves lure Tim Connelly from Denver; inside the mega deal and negotiations