The question of whether Mike Conley was perhaps too old to be a big-time contributor upon whom the Timberwolves could lean a month back now feels like decades ago.
Surely, such a preposterous query couldn’t have been levied this season? Not given how well the guard has played over the past month, and how vital he has again proven himself to be to Minnesota’s success.
The Wolves have played 16 games since Nov.4. They’re 0-4 in the four Conley sits, and 9-3 when he plays.
What’s his level of impact when he’s on the floor? In that month-plus of action, the Wolves are outscoring opponents by 14.7 points per possession when Conley is in, the best net rating across the NBA among players with at least 10 games who average 26-plus minutes per game.
Conley is playing the highest level of winning basketball.
After a slow start that can be traced back to a wrist injury that effectively prevented Conley from working on his game in the way he’d like to in the offseason, the 37-year-old guard is shooting 39 percent from 3 over his past 12 games, while averaging 1.7 steals.
Wolves coach Chris Finch said Conley is always at his best when he’s aggressive. Minnesota has implored the veteran guard to continue to look for his own opportunities to attack early in the game to allow himself to settle in, knowing the team will be better for it. The adjustment seems to have worked.
Conley’s resurgence has solved much of what ailed the starting lineup earlier in the year. That unit is out-scoring opponents by 18 points per 100 possessions over the last month — the third-best mark among all five-man lineups with 100-plus minutes in that span, trailing only the starting fives of the Celtics and Spurs.
Conley is also an integral part of Minnesota’s second unit with Rudy Gobert and reserves Donte DiVincenzo, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Naz Reid — which is currently the best five-man lineup in the NBA in a still somewhat limited sample size. But everything Conley is a part of at the moment essentially turns to gold.
That’s part of the concern for the Wolves, that the veteran might be too pivotal to their success. The negative impact of his absences this season mimic how the team’s performance was dampened in the playoffs when Conley was either knocked out or severely hampered by a calf strain.
But that’s life when you have a player like Conley. You can’t replicate the impact of a true floor general who can not only organize his teammates possession by possession, but also knock down shots and defend his position well.
There are only a handful of guys, tops, like that in the NBA.
“It’s hard to understate how important he is to us in everything that we continue to do,” Finch said.
Which makes managing Conley’s workload tricky.
On the surface, it makes sense to want to limit the veteran’s minutes in the regular season to ensure he’s at or near 100 percent when it matters most. But there’s little evidence to suggest that’s actually how injury prevention works. Conley prefers to stay in a rhythm. And Minnesota seems to be finding a rhythm of its own of late thanks, in large part, to what its starting point guard provides.
Removing his impact from the equation, even on occasion, wouldn’t seem wise at this juncture. For now, the Wolves may very well ride their floor general back toward the top of the Western Conference standings.