Mike Conley Jr.’s choice of clothing for his trip to Madison Square Garden for a game against the Knicks wasn’t what his old coach Lionel Hollins had recommended right after he signed the largest contract in NBA history this summer. The Grizzlies point guard, with his five-year, $152.6 million deal, wore a white hoodie with a photo montage of Muhammad Ali on the chest. “I told Mike after I congratulated him on the contract, “get on your knees and thank God you had the leverage to get this kind of money, and one other thing: You better put on a flak jacket,” Hollins said. “I told Mike, from here on that’s a big target on your chest.” After a wild summer of spending in the NBA, thanks to an unprecedented leap in the salary cap to a record $94 million, nobody is wearing a bigger bulls-eye than Conley. He knows it and as, he told Sporting News at his locker late after the Grizzlies fell to the Knicks, he’s fine with it. Really. “I’m already hearing about it,” he said. During the Grizzlies loss, as Conley sat on the bench during this restricted-minutes phase of his season — he’s still recovering from an Achilles tendon injury that ended his 2015-16 season — he was serenaded with chants of “overrated.” That’s tame compared to what he might face down the road when he goes into some of the toughest arenas in the NBA, which he lists as Golden State, Toronto and, it almost goes without saying, Philadelphia. - See more at: http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/new...story-lebron-james/1wavgjijueklu1ho4j20evweh3
