Michael Heisley Not Listening to Criticism of Mike Conley’s Deal

The contract may be awful, but at the end of the day, it’s Mr. Heisley’s money and he can burn it all he wants. From FanHouse: “Heisley showed his confidence in his current team by signing Conley to a five-year, $40 million (with $5 million additional in possible incentives) contract extension reached just before Monday’s midnight deadline. However, Conley’s deal, which begins next season, has been deemed excessive by some. Heisley didn’t want to speak about Conley’s contract, saying, ”m not going to justify or listen to criticisms and so on of what we did. It’s a negotiation and we made the negotiation and it is what it is.” However, Heisley was willing to speak about the improvement the fourth-year point guard has made on the court. ‘If you go back and look at Mike Conley the last month of last year, he really came alive,” Heisley said. “When we drafted him, he was a very, very good defensive point guard in the league putting pressure on the guy with the ball. And I think he’s been much more cautious. I think he’s finally coming into his own. I think we now have the player we drafted. I would have liked to have had him two years ago, but we didn’t. Lionel Hollins (the Memphis coach), who was a point guard (on 1977 champion Portland and played in the 1980 and 1982 Finals with Philadelphia), basically has told me over and over and over again that Conley is going to be a good point guard, one of the better point guards in this league. That why we’ve got confidence. If you had to go up to somebody and ask them whether a guy’s going to be good point guard in this league, it helps that the guy that’s telling you was (an NBA champion with three overall Finals appearances).'”