Careers Like T.J. McConnell's Don't Happen

AU on the unusual path our Timothy John has taken in the NBA, leading to him playing in the NBA finals (and us actually being happy for him).

With all Sixers enemies past and present in these NBA playoffs now vanquished -- the Celtics, the Knicks, Nikola Jokic, Coach JJ -- there's precious little spiciness or agenda-related possibilities to recommend this upcoming Thunder-Pacers finals, airing at 8:30/7:30 CT every Wednesday and Sunday for the next three weeks on Channel 588. If you want to believe the Real Hoop propagandists on Twitter and Bluesky trying to convince you this series is really something to get excited about, go nuts. For the rest of us Process Trusters still watching these NBA playoffs, we basically have two rooting interests left:

1. Hoping Daryl Morey watches closely enough to figure out a way to capture the same post-Paul-George-trade magic as these two teams.

2. Wanting T.J. McConnell to get a ring.

Sixers fans wanting good things for ex-Sixers on their new playoff teams is no guaranteed or even particularly likely outcome. Look at most of the ex-Sixers playing prominent roles on teams in these playoffs -- Al Horford, Tobias Harris, James Harden, would we call Ben Simmons' role on the Clippers "prominent" exactly? -- and there's nary a well-wish spared between 'em. Even Isaiah Joe, the one-time Sixers-sicko favorite who got waived and is now on the fringes of the Thunder's rotation, can't really be rooted for in good conscience, because him finding success on a good team just represents another referendum on the Sixers' inability to develop and maintain valuable young players on cheap contracts. But everyone wants good things for T.J. Because he's had a career that we really don't ever see in the NBA.

T.J. was unusual enough upon his arrival to the Sixers. Nobody really expected him to make the team out of Arizona; even among the low-ceiling-but-supposedly-NBA-ready point guards on the team's 2015 Summer League roster, I remember Scottie Wilbekin of Florida getting way more buzz. But T.J. made the team -- the worst Sixers team of the entire 21st century, as you may recall -- and made an immediate impact, even moving into the starting lineup for 13 games that November (all losses but who's counting). Most times when an undrafted white guard carves out a role for himself in the NBA, it's through some combination of stalwart perimeter defense, solid three-point shooting and general role-knowiness; T.J. did it by mixing Russell Westbrook's tenacity with Tony Parker's shot selection. And he was absolutely fearless. He hit turnaround game-winners over Carmelo Anthony. He beat the Celtics in the playoffs almost single-handedly. He didn't want to go to fucking Cleveland. We loved him without question or limit.

And then he was gone. As unusual as his success was in Philadelphia, his ultimate departure was even stranger: He may be the only Sixer of my lifetime who both had a near-unanimous approval rating, and who everyone basically still agreed had to go. After all, when T.J.'s role and playing time diminished for the Sixers in 2019 and he barely played in the Raptors series, it was for an extraordinarily simple reason -- he was a point guard who couldn't shoot and didn't much want to shoot, on a team that already had Ben Simmons, Jimmy Butler and (occasionally) Markelle Fultz. When he signed with Indiana that offseason, I remember some sentimentality and a little sadness, but barely any anger: This team needed more spacing around Joel Embiid, and T.J. was not gonna be the guy to provide it. We knew we'd probably miss him, but not enough to actually want to make a real attempt to keep him. (I certainly didn’t.)

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We didn't really think he'd end up doing much in Indiana, anyway. After all, that team was mired in mediocrity after injuries sucked the juice out of the Pacers' Victor Oladipo-led resurgence; T.J. did his thing there but felt like he was mostly treading water for a couple years. This probably should have been the time in his career that T.J. started jumping from team to team, a season here as the seasoned vet helping the young guys find their footing, a season there as the professional backup helping the old guys go ring-chasing. On Bluesky during the Knicks series, FOTB John Gonzalez called out the TNT broadcast for saying that McConnell had "bounced around the league," when in fact he had only ever played for the Pacers and Sixers in his decade-long career. Gonz was right of course, but I sympathized with the TNT crew; T.J. should have played for at least four or five different teams by now.

But no. He stuck it out in Indiana, and improbably had the best seasons of his career in his last two, as a sixth man under Rick Carlisle for the now-run-and-gun Pacers. If you were told in 2019 he would last six years in Indiana, your first guess might be that he was ultimately adopted as a Udonis Haslem-like bench-bound totem of franchise culture; if you were told he had a breakout season as a 31-year-old, you might think he finally found consistent success as a spot-up shooter. Again, emphatically no on both: T.J.'s 31 threes made in his rookie season as a Sixer is still his career high; during his 2023-24 season -- his first averaging double digits -- he made 18 total. Rather, Carlisle just lets T.J. go Full T.J. for 18 minutes a night, throwing hit-ahead passes, hawking back-court steals, attacking, attacking, attacking. Seemingly through sheer short-king force of will, he's not only hung around a modern NBA that should have increasingly little place for him, he's become a key cog in perhaps the most dangerous offensive team on the planet.

And now he's in the NBA finals. I don't know if anyone outside of Reggie Miller and David Letterman is actually predicting Indiana to even last six games in this series, as sports media has decided to skip straight to the "Is the Thunder dynasty a good thing for the NBA or not?" debate before they've even captured Championship One. And they're probably right to do so. But I am confident that even if the Pacers go down in five, that one W will come largely on the back of one Timothy John McConnell Jr., forever ready to meet the moment of unlikely excellence. And Sixers fans will cheer for him like we're January 2017 Joel Embiid.

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Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.