This. Everything I can find in the media is that the jazz had a superior offer (1 more guaranteed year... Huge for an aging player) and the only players I can find bojan mentioning by name are Mitchell and gobert. He also mentioned the entire roster, which at that point included Conley so there is that. I think the "bogie ONLY signs because of Conley" line is severely overblown.
what is even more overblown is the idea that "conley will helps us go further in the playoff"
i mean, why not just look up memphis records in the playoffs? they are pretty much the embodiment of "high floor low ceiling" typa team that's always been hanging around but never ever came close to championship contention. so if you want that "came close, but not really" typa playoff experience, you bring in conley.
the closest they ever got was in 2013, in which they were simply fortunate to have faced a clippers team that had Griffin battling an injury all series long, then a thunder team that lost westbrook. and finally getting swept by the spurs in the conference finals. if you call that "playoff winning experience", then we for sure had a "championship team" in 2007 when we at least took 1 game from spurs, a team that eventually went on to win the championship that year.
i mean, maybe memphis just had a poor supporting cast that were holding conley back right? he did everything he could but simply was stuck with bad teammates, right?
right?
oh, in clutch moments during memphis' playoff runs, or more specifically, in win or go home games:
2011,
G5 versus thunder, Memphis trailed 1 to 3, win or go home. Conley went 3 for 12, luckily Grizz won.
G6, still trailed 2 to 3, conley again went 7 for 19 shooting in a Memphis loss and subsequently eliminated
2012,
G5 versus Clippers, trailed 1 to 3. Conley 4 for 10 in a Grizz win.
G6, 2 to 3, Conley 4 for 9(wow!) in a Grizz win.
G7, winner takes all, Conley went 2 for 13 in a Grizz loss, yikes...
2013,
conference finals versus spurs, trailed 0 to 3, Conley 4 for 13 in a SWEPT to finish up the best Grit n Grind run ever.
2014,
G7 versus Thunder, winner takes all, 8 for 14(WOW!!!!!!) in a Grizz loss.
2015,
G6 versus Warriors, trailed 2 to 3, win or go home, Conley? 3 for 13......
2017,
G6 versus Spurs, Conley's BEST playoffs performance ever??? 7 for 18 to finish G6 in a Grizz loss...
so a baller comes playoff? a clutch player that's gonna help us advance further in the playoffs??? in order to qualify for that category, you should at least put up: great productions on less efficiency, moderate productions on great efficiency, or high productions on high efficiency(superstars or HoFers). Unfortunately, i don't think Conley fits any of that. 16 pts on 41% shooting just isn't that good, period.
and yeah yeah, people can say conley helps us in areas other than shooting and scoring, but when we let Rubio go, what were we looking at really? to upgrade our shooting and scoring...
if you want playmaking, hustle plays or defense, why not keep Rubio, who's probably better than Conley in those areas at this point of his career? so i think the issue with the conley acquisition is that we took a step backwards in terms of size, defense, playmaking, rebounding without much improving(still improved, just not by much...) our shooting/scoring.
if we brought in someone like Chris Paul, who at least had some elite shooting/scoring records in playoffs, then that's a different story.