It's not that no one's excited about Mike Conley Jr. joining the Boston Celtics. It's that Paul George and Mitchell Robinson are a bit more exciting. Even so, what makes the Conley addition flattering is that he joined Boston in part because he wanted to join a team with plenty of mystique, like the Celtics.
The Athletic's Jon Krawczynski confirmed Conley wanted to play at least one year for a "flagship franchise."
How did Mike Conley land in Boston after 4 beloved years in Minnesota? @JonKrawczynski: “I was told Mike really wanted to at least spend one year playing for a flagship franchise.”
— Bobby Manning (@RealBobManning) September 6, 2026
We discussed what Conley brings to Boston in our Celtics player preview series. pic.twitter.com/H9ukKzLZDT
That's actually pretty cool that he picked them over going back to a team like Minnesota (who made it clear they want a title badly this summer), but what makes his reasoning so ironic is that Conley was within inches of becoming a Celtic when his career first started.
Everyone there remembers when the Big 3 were assembled in 2007. What many forget is that Boston tanked that year to get a shot at Kevin Durant or Greg Oden. It got even worse than that, though, because they got the No. 5 pick, which was the worst possible outcome for them as the second-worst team in the NBA.
Conley wasn't on Durant's or Oden's level as a prospect, but he wasn't too far from them. He was expected to go No. 4 at worst, behind some kid from Florida named Al Horford, which is exactly what happened.
The Celtics were right behind the Grizzlies for No. 4. There's no telling what would have happened or how Conley's career would have turned out had Boston gotten the No. 4 pick instead of Memphis.
Would they have kept or traded Conley?
With the No. 5 pick, Boston picked Jeff Green (ironically hilarious knowing what happened four years later), who they then traded to Seattle, along with Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak for some no-name who went by Ray Allen, and a second-round pick that became Glen Davis.
Conley was believed to have more potential than Green at the time (many thought that if Boston planned to keep the pick, they were going to pick Yi Jianlian), so there's no telling whether Boston would have kept him and gone young. Alternatively, if the plan was still to put together the Big 3, what else would have gone back to the SuperSonics?
Conley may have been a good enough prospect that West may not have had to be included to get Allen, which could have made that 2008 title team stronger if that were the case. Of course, if he had stuck around by some miracle, he may have then been included in the Kevin Garnett deal.
Dominoes fall left and right in the NBA. Conley now gets the chance he came within inches of getting with Boston almost two decades ago. It's just funny to think of how much different things would have been if they had gotten him back in 2007.
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