Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - NBA Squad Show: Conference Finals are set to COLLIDE as New NBA Era changes championship landscape

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

NBA Squad Show: Conference Finals are set to COLLIDE as New NBA Era changes championship landscape Can the Oklahoma City Thunder overcome the Minnesota Timberwolves' depth in the Western Conference Finals? As the NBA playoffs heat up, the Thunder's defensive prowess faces a stern test against the Timberwolves, who have been a force in the West all season.Join Nick Engstad, Doug Norrie, and Ryland Styles as they break down the thrilling Game 7 between the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder, and preview the upcoming conference finals. The discussion highlights key players like Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Tyrese Haliburton, while exploring how the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement is reshaping team-building strategies.With insights into the Eastern Conference Finals matchup between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks, this episode offers a comprehensive look at the evolving NBA landscape.Tune in for expert analysis and discover how these playoff battles could redefine the league's future. 0:00 Intro: Denver vs OKC Game Seven analysis5:46 Western Conference Finals: Thunder vs Timberwolves13:55 Eastern Conference Finals: Pacers vs Knicks22:08 CBA impact on team building and roster depth28:16 Draft lottery results and tanking strategies Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today's Lockdown NBA Squad show, let's unpack Denver versus OKC game seven. Did it fundamentally change the future of either of these teams? Let's look at the conference finals. And is the CBA just completely changing the league we love? We'll talk about all that and more right now. And welcome to the Lockdownmada Squad Show. My name is Nick Engstead, host of Lockdown Mavericks. This is the squad show.

We take over the feed of your favorite lockdown show. It's an open invite for any host to join and talk about anything they want in the NBA. Joining me from Lockdown Jazz. That's right. David Locke. From Locked on Nuggets. First playoff, first playoff action for me. From Lockdown, Knuggins.

For Dick, too, by the way. Ryan Blackburn, yeah, I also did not participate in any playoffs stuff. And from Lockdown Nuggets, Ryland Stiles, others may join as well as we go along here. And gentlemen, we may end up with somewhere completely different. But let's start with Game 7. I've been looking at a lot of the Game 7s recently. There's a Reddit post that caught my eye. Game 7 disappointments.

Over the last 12 game sevens, 10 of them have been decided by double digits. And you have margins like, if you remember Mav's sons from a couple years ago, we had like Celtics over the Sixers in like a 40-point game. You had the Nuggets, Lost of the Wolves last year in the game seven. That was a pretty big one. And then this one is we say some of the best words in sports is game seven. Are we overhyping game sevens or it breaks open at a certain point? I'll say tremendously overhyped.

There's no reason for anybody to think anything about game sevens ever at all. No, it's just so like the funny thing is Denver's played two game sevens in these playoffs. And the first one that they played against the clippers, they blew them out. Second one, they played against the Thunder on the road. Opposite situation, they got blown out. So it helps to have home court advantage. That's for sure. And it was unnatural that Denver lost their home court advantage game last year.

It doesn't actually. I thought that there was a no. recently that home court advantage has gone game seven less than it ever used to maybe maybe that's true it certainly feels like it from from denver's perspective though that they've been able to like kind of in in their own personal hell at this point so it's nice nice to be able to have game seven at home if you're if you're Denver but i do fully acknowledge that just in general the playoffs has been completely the opposite in terms of home court advantage really mattering and by the time you get to a Team seven, it's like a war of attrition of just who can stay healthy.

You're playing every other day. Playing at home certainly does help you. Depth certainly does help you. And then you just have such familiarity with these teams, especially within your own conference. And then your own division, like you're guaranteed to play them four times. By the time you get to the game seven, you've played sure there eight times and who can kind of scheme up the best wrinkle in that game seven.

And if it throws you off at all, you can kind of spiral a little bit. And then the health is the big deal as well. But I do think that game sevens ultimately are one game sample size. And it's like if this blowout, which happened to game two, did happen only in game two. We would have never been hyper-focusing on it. But because it happened in game seven, you know, it's a big deal. It was a standalone type of event. But even with that game two heading into game seven, we were talking about how this series was so close, so competitive with a blowout in hand.

It just so happened. OKC got another blowout in there to end the series. Right. You predicted, you predicted OKC in seven before this series. Was anything different than what you expected, or is this about how you thought it was going to go? Yeah, it was about how I thought it was going to go, except for you can't really predict that Aaron Gordon's going to get hurt. Michael Porter Jr. continued to battle it out all series long, and you got to give him a lot of credit. He just couldn't produce outside of game three in this series to the level I thought he was going to be able to, even with that shoulder injury.

But yeah, I mean, you saw Denver win a couple close games early on in the series of the Thunder were not prepared for. And that's factored in. You saw Yokic takeover games, and the Thunder got the benefit of a one. win and again that he completely took over in game five that the thunder were still able to win. But Denver had the top in talent to be able to push Oklahoma City to their limits and to force Oklahoma City to try to deliver in big spots. And the unknown variable of how they would handle those high pressure moments, I think, let you see why this series got extended, partly because of how good Denver is, partly because of like, you gave away game one.

Because you just were so inexperienced. And Denver was a more poised, a more championship tested team at that time. If you don't give away game one, who knows what happens? You don't blow them out in game two, but do you still try to find a way to win game two? We'll never know. But I just thought that there were so many things that went into this from a Denver standpoint of having the best player in the world, which has typically been enough to extend series throughout NBA history.

And the thunder's unknown that it felt like this was due for a very long series. It seems counterintuitive in the sense that two teams have played an even enough series to get to a game seven, but it does feel like game seven is like, right for the blowout, right? Like the minute, the minute it goes to the point in which, like I don't think you're losing by 16. You're losing by 40 or you're losing by 4? Like you let go of the rope at some point in the midst of a game 7

because this war of attrition that Ryland's talking about, you're exhausted, you're going as depth as you can and when it's suddenly over, I think you let go of the rope. So I think that's the case. I mean, I think the interesting part of this series is this was the whole narrative of the experience versus the inexperience, which I'm not sure I totally bought it the whole time.

But I think that's the breakthrough for Oklahoma City is whether, regardless of whether that narrative was true or not, they believe it now. And I think that's probably the most important thing that came out of a game seven. And I thought the quotes from Jaylin and Shea after the game about how nervous they were was really interesting and revealing that they openly kind of said that they were that nervous. And Jaylen saying he didn't sleep the night before. and that led him to make a bad clothing choice and get fined. And then Shea comment that he was openly nervous about it.

So I think that's for them to break through on that, I think whether that narrative is true or not, it's a pretty important moment. They were the best team. They broke through. This was always the place that it probably should have been. I think Denver acquitted themselves really well throughout that series in terms of just staying attached and staying connected

and doing what they could. kind of dragging OKC down into the mud in a lot of these games. And then Yokic just winning one of them and helping Denver kind of get through that point. But ultimately, I think that Denver has a lot of questions that they have to answer heading into the offseason. They obviously don't have a coach or a general manager, which made this all so much weirder than it probably should have been. But kind of at the same place that they were last year, except they have more questions than they did before. Looking at the Western Conference Finals now, the Thunder minus 375, Timberwolves plus 300.

You look at the Eastern Conference. It's a much smaller margin, minus 154 for the Knicks. And so the Thunder are still a bit, they're a pretty big favorite in this conference final. Anybody feel good about the Timberwolves? Well, I've been probably the most pro Timberwolves person around. I've had them as the second best team of the West all season long.

I think they have the eight best players, top to bottom, like quality of all eight of their rotation spots, I think, are, I don't think there's anyone in the West that has an eight that's better than their eight, particularly when you think of DeVincenzo and Alexander Walker and Nasreid coming off the bench. And that's complete, and so I think, and then if you think about maybe their second, and what's interesting about this series is that if Oklahoma City, you know, Oklahoma City's second best players not as good as most second best players are, nor is Minnesota. is. So that's where I think you used to say you had to have a top 10, a top 20, a top 50 player in the NBA to win. Both these teams have a top 10 player. But I don't think either have a top 20 player in the NBA. And then there's a debate of whether they actually have a top 50 player in the NBA after that. So I think chat's probably there. And Jalen's getting close. But I don't think Jal's at 20 yet. And Julius Randall's been awfully close here recently. But I don't think he's top 20. And then we can discuss Gobert if we had three hours.

So would we be involved in that conversation? How many times would screen assists come up in that conversation, I wonder. So I don't know. I think that that's, I mean, the one thing I would say on this series, particularly to this matchup is Minnesota's weakness is that their offense can go really wonky and they turn the ball over. And that's Oklahoma City strength. I thought Rylan made a good point on Locked on Sports today that the Warriors used to kind of bludgeon you

with their defense into like these threes and into this kind of and suddenly be on a 14-0 run, that Oklahoma City does it with a flurry of turnovers they create. And you end up in this kind of whirlwind of turnovers. I think that'll be the same thing in this series, that that's Minnesota's weakness. And I just don't know how Mike Conley plays in this series. I think that's those are the two things that sway me here to believe that my worst nightmare in life is going to happen. And that's Oklahoma City advancing the NBA finals.

Could you, by the way, Rylan, one thing. So it was fine when your fan base didn't know anything about the NBA and did this cute little collegiate bull crap where they stood until their team scored every night. So one, it's backwards and stupid and wrong. And two, you're now like an NBA finals fandom. So can you please stop that? Because you should be doing it the other way.

The Mavs do that too now. The Mavs do that. We definitely do that too. We definitely do that too. It's the stupidest thing. Why do the fan bases do this? It's backwards. Because if your team goes on a drought and you have to call time out, you're down night, nothing.

You're standing during the time out looking like a fool. It's totally backwards. There's been a lot of that before. I was say there was definitely a time of Mavs game this year where we stood, they stood for like five minutes to start the game. The stupidest thing. Who started this? Absurdity. And the thunder.

And other people followed. trendsetters David trendsetters wear your shirts be loud be proud all the thunder fans do is just follow they'll boo somebody next to them does they'll all wear the shirts hey the Brian burns marketing machine I know the guy who's behind it he's the best there is I'm all for it like the shirts are amazing it's incredible just sit down or your team allows a basket and then sit down because that would be the right way to do it particularly now that you're good it was cute when you were bad but now you're good don't do that anymore If somebody did sit down,

the camera would go to them and put them on the Jumbotron like they do with the shirts at the beginning, like before the game, pregame, they'll point somebody out that's not wearing the shirt and like shame them into putting the shirt on.

Honestly, I like fan bases and I like teams that peer pressure their fans into actually acting like fans. I think that it's good because there's too much of a, there's too much of a world right now where everybody thinks that they're too cool

to put on the shirt. It's why the nuggets have have done away with that and have done towels for the entire, for the entire playoff front. They never once put out a shirt. It was insane. But like, it's just, it's just how it is at the time. You know, towels are cheaper in shirts. Yeah.

Very much cheaper. Very less, uh, less effective. If you have a, if you have a towel waving around, can you really make ample noise that you want to make? Hey, they, they wave those towels like nobody's business. Like, call them a team full of D'Andre Jordans right there. Let's go. If you want to talk about backwards ways of living, we can talk about Denver,

all we want to. But for now, let's talk about the Western Conference Finals where the Thunder have a great chance. I think that the odds are a bit too wide in this series. I think that Minnesota matches up really well with OKC. They can do similar things that OKC likes to do, which they can use to turn it against them. It'll come down to you turnovers and three point shot making like Denver is going to, I mean, Minnesota is going to be able to create some open threes because of the way OKC plays defense. OKC will as well. Who's going to hit those shots and can Denver protect the ball? I mean, if Minnesota, Minnesota, it can protect the ball, then this is going to be a series that goes to distance and it can be

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locked on NBA squad show. we're here talking about the conference finals. We've talked about Thunder Minnesota. Let's talk about the Eastern Conference side of this. Thunder, Minnesota, because I had a really... Do the one more thing. I didn't get to get it to get it to the end of it. Go for it.

Is it about Gobert? No. During the regular season, the Thunder had the fourth best half-court offense, and Minnesota had the 13th best. So it seems like this huge variation and really important in this series because Oklahoma City had the number one half-court defense

and Minnesota had the number two half-court defense. But if you dig into it a little bit and you go up against only top 10 defenses, then their offenses in the half court basically equalize. So I think that's an interesting little note. Like the Thunder's offense was better all year, but clearly feasted on bad defenses, where as Minnesota actually played a little bit, like they were actually a little bit better.

They're not the exact same, but they're close. I mean, Oklahoma City is the sixth best half-court offense, and Minnesota is now the ninth best half-court offense when going against a top-10 defense. And I thought that was just kind of an interesting little note. And the other one is that Oklahoma City really stopped offensive rebounding against elite defensive teams, where Minnesota, that's actually kind of what they did is they pounded the glass against elite defensive teams, and that is a Oklahoma City weakness. So worth keeping an eye on.

Sorry. That's clearly something, of course, that they would. do in this round against a team like OKC where Chath Holmgren is a little bit smaller. You can be bullied under, and especially with OKC probably going with one more, one big in a lot of these lineups that they're going to throw out there. So they'll be playing small OKC will and Minnesota is just,

they're just so naturally physically gifted, large athletic physical that that's a team that is going to put a lot of pressure on OKC in a way that Denver just couldn't. Well, I don't think they want to play too big because then Rudy can stay around the basket. Yeah, you're going to have to go so low big and trust Crusoe, trust Jadab onto Randall and Rudy's a non-factor offensively at the rem, you know, with Chet there to deter him.

So I think that that's where Minnesota could make up some of that margin and really dominate on the glass and in second chance points, which are going to be a premium with how good these defenses are. I just still go back to who's, who's going to, if Mike Conley can't play very much, who's going to dribble on the, on the Timberwolves? Like I came down to it in that game seven, you're watching like, they only kind of trust Yokic and sometimes Murray to like initiate offense at a certain point.

Secretly it was like they had Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown bringing the ball up the floor a lot. And then Aaron Gordon had one leg. Michael Porter had one arm to dribble with before the injury. And now he had 0.5. So it's pretty tough to pretty tough for Denver. But they were able to manage the pressure reasonably well. But yeah, you're right. Minnesota that's that's obviously going to be a factor for them.

Nikiel probably I would guess. Interesting. On the east side of things. Pacers versus Knicks. What are your big questions? Anybody have a feeling? I guess what Fanduel said, the Knicks are minus 154, so not like a huge favorite, but are the favorite. Some public money, of course, coming in for the Knicks, but I really like the Pacers, man.

They've been really, really impressive. They have so much of depth. They have so many layers that they can throw at these teams. And Halliburton is, as long as he is getting free and getting downhill consistently, that Pacer's offense is going to cook. they just are. So that really does seem like the battle to me. Can Mikhail Bridges, Josh Hart, OG Ananovi, can those guys prevent Tyrese Halliburton from going right? I don't know. Like, he is pretty good at it. Yeah, I love the Pacers. I think that they have the attrition we talked

about that you're going to have to get through another series that will go of really long way. I think that it'll end no quicker than six. I think it will go seven in this series. And they have that depth to manage that. And I think that they just have a lot of guys that you're comfortable with kind of in their scoring by committee role that they play that they're going to be able to find enough offense to win in this series. So neither of these teams are elite defensively, right? They're both very, very average defensively. I think New York was 12th best and Indiana was 13th best. I think they're both bottom 10 in defending the shot. Who finds a way to impact the series defensively? I mean, this is two very, very good offense.

teams. Off the top of my head, I think Indiana was fifth best half court, second best transition. New York was like six best half court, about six best transition. These are two elite offensive teams. Who if either of them can find a way to impact in any way, shape, or form defensively? Because they're virtually the exact same defensive team other than New York fouled more than Indiana. Otherwise, they were almost the exact same. Kind of would imply, I think, if you're trusting individual players, that O.G. and Noby would be the guy that I would be leaning on in that series to give them a little bit more stability.

And so if you're trying to get somebody to at least slow down somebody on the Pacers, then he can match up with Pascal Seaccom, but he could also probably switch on to Halliburton and do a reasonable job there. But Bridges is another one that just the length and athleticism there, something that the Pacers were able to, they were able to manage in the previous round, though. so it's hard to figure out. That is going to be a tremendous matchup,

but also one that should be very high scoring. Actually, I think Minnesota and Oklahoma City, the two best teams that are left. And I actually think that series could be horrific to watch. Yeah. Like half-court possessions could just turn in to Aunt or Shea going one-on-one with just nothing else because the other teams are so good defensively. both those teams, whereas Indiana and New York might be just a frolicing fun, up and down, awesome series to watch.

Frolicking? Is that what you call what Jalen Brunson does? Is that? He learned from one of the best. I will say as a jazz fan, the fact that Jalen Brunson kicked our ass and upbeat us in a playoff series with Lou. Does not look nearly as ridiculous as it did at the time. In 2022, which by the way, that was three years ago. I just got like a notification, like a look back on one of my apps. And I was like, that was three years ago that run. That's it. It's insane how much the NBA changes in that amount of time. But yeah, Brunson, like carrying the MAVs in that in a couple of those games is wild look back on and see he's now playing for the Knicks in my Eastern Conference finals.

Coming up, that CBA is changing things. We're seeing these teams. We're going to have another new NBA champion like seven in the last seven years. Stuff is changing. Is it changing for the better and why? We'll talk about that and more coming up. Locked NBA Squad Show. Today's episode of Locked NBA Squad Show is brought to you by Skims

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and USABasketskims.com slash locked on NBA. It's the squad show. We're taking over the feet of your favorite show. We've been talking about the conference finals. And we're going to see a new champion. Seven different ones in seven years has never happened in the NBA. And we're about to see it. Is it just because the CBA is making it harder for teams to just maintain or retain talent anyway?

I don't think that the nuggets needed much of an excuse to duck the second tax apron, but they did it anyway, did not bring back. Kentavius Caldwell Pope this last year. And that would have been somebody who would be pretty helpful in that OKC series. So unfortunate that they didn't have him. But Bruce Brown, also somebody that left. That wasn't the CBA's fault. But it does just feel like Denver lost their depth in terms,

like because they were trying to keep together the best possible starting lineup that they could. And they lost out in a lot of ways because OKC was better six to nine, six to ten than Denver was and that gave them the extra wrinkles and the extra ability in a game seven to just have one more matchup that they could go to. Here's an interesting little numbers note for you. The Phoenix Sun's top two players, $101 million between the two of them. Seventy-sixers, 100. Milwaukee, 97, Golden State, 103. Lakers, 91. Boston was at 84 and frankly, you know, so are Indiana, Minnesota, and the Knicks are all at 85 million and their top two players.

The Thunder are only at 65 because their players haven't gotten paid yet. But it makes you wonder whether or not the old model, and if you go look at Golden State, they're at 127 for their top three. The Lakers are at 120, 108, Milwaukee's at 121, the 76ers are at 135. The sons were at 150 and one of the most grotesque roster developments of all time. Indiana's top three players make 103 million. The Knicks make 109 million. Oklahoma cities make 81 million. And the one that I think is just most fascinating is Minnesota's at these numbers because they traded towns.

and by trading towns, who's better than probably Julius Randall or Dante DiVincenzo, they went from 34 minutes of action to about 58 minutes of action between DeVenzo and Randall, if not 60. And I just, that makes me wonder whether the model now, the old idea of the big three, no, I don't think so. And I'm not even sure you can big to it anymore with two really high price players anymore. That's wild. The salary cap was 70 million in 2016. Like it was 58 million in 2014.

Like just looking at those numbers, they have increased so much. And the percentage of what a max player is is increased so much that that's why. I keep saying for the Mavs, like you cannot do a Kevin Durant trade where you trade like four guys because you lose four of Clay, Gafford, PJ, Caleb Martin, and Najee Marshall. All right. You just lose four of them.

that's all your depth to get a Kevin Durant or somebody like that. It's a wild proposition. If you think about it for years, the thing was all you had to do on a trade was decide what team got the best player and that's who won the trade. It may now be who got the most rotation minutes. So you're saying the Mabbs won the Lucre trade because they got AD and they got Christy who are both going to, is that?

Many are you saying. AD gets zero. Yeah, AD doesn't play. So that's tough. But I think that it also is like He came back this year. He could have shut it down guys. Well.

Sure. I do also think that to David's point, it's a financial thing. Also a minutes played thing of like, like it or not, the sport now is more taxing than it used to be in different ways. It used to be it was so taxing because guys were taking trains to the games and they were playing back to backs every night. But now it's like.

But now it's like, you know, the physical nature of the. the game, the explosiveness, the science that you put your body through in a game that you can track is so different that it just wears you out. And they haven't limited, they haven't lessened the 82 game schedule and they haven't let these series breathe more. And so yeah, Denver, like, they're not, they don't have depth. They also had a team good enough to win. Like, Aaron Gordon was their third best player of the series and he turned into a non-factor in game seven solely because he popped the same string in game six and they didn't have anyone else to go to. So like,

you need depth because inevitably you're going to need to rely on it. Thanks for the reminder, Rylan. Really. How many times can we bring up the Nuggets lost that game seven? It's like every segment. We just keep going to. You dip it back into that. It's my new Luca trade.

Great. We brought that up too at a certain point. Well, no. Matt, mine and I'll just sit over here and enjoy ourselves in the Rocky Mountains. You bring up the lottery every time you can, Nick. Rylan, you bring up game seven and we'll just sit over here in the Rocky Mountains. mountains enjoy ourselves. By the way, there's a snowstorm coming, Ryan. You'll be pretty

pleased to get in my, I'll make sure to bring my sweatshirt and shorts, which is the, the national Colorado weather for snowstorm in July. It was 90 degrees here in Dallas. We got the rig lottery. The referendum on tanking, I think, is far overblown, though. I think that you should, like, what's you thought to put, what's you thought supposed to do? Like, yes, they got screwed by the results of the lottery. But like, the math is the math. And they put themselves in the very best chance to go get the very best player that they could possibly net in any transactional window their very best chance of netting a really high caliber player was from the draft lottery and getting Cooper flag so they're going to have to do it again they're going to have to go tank again

and hope that they get lottery luck the same thing happened to the thunder by the way like they they had a chance in their first tanking year to get two top five picks they get none and they get Josh giddy like yeah that sucked in the moment they went back to they went back to the well and then they end up with with chat number two and they end up getting jay J-Dub at number 12, and then they continue to move on from there, and then we see what their team is now. But it's like, it's not a point in laugh at Utah. It's like, oh, the number screwed them.

Like the math and ping pong balls screwed them. They've got to just do this whole thing again. Well, what's fascinating is, if we look at the final four teams, there's only one free agent of any element in any of these four teams, right? The only free agent. They hired his dad is right. Is Jalen Brunson to the Knicks and everything else. All roads lead from the Mavericks.

Right. I mean, Harkinstein's an interesting one to our past conversation of the only team that could afford to give Harkinstein $30 million was the Thunder who had a bunch of young talent that they don't have to pay and they gave it to them for two years. It's a really brilliant move by Sam Presti, but to our point of like,

none of the other teams in the league could afford to pay Harkinstein $30 million because of what we're talking about with depth. Your only way you're building your teams now, really, if you look at the big moves on all these rosters, It's the Pascal Ciacom trade that put Indiana into another level. It's the Julius Randall, Rudy Gobert, the Julius Randall-Anthe-Toneman, but also it's really the Rudy Gobert trade that has gotten them to the conference finals two years in a row. Like you go walk through these, it's pretty interesting to see that they're, you know,

and then you could probably decide it's the OG and O.G. And O.G. and O. G. and O. McHall Bridges trade for the next. Like, it's a trade league now, and you either are acquiring draft assets through trades or you're acquiring players through trades. What's, what's Cooper Flagg's dad doing in these days? I might try to, might have a little into the Nuggets organization. Mr. Flagg, he's like our age, isn't he? I have no idea.

Actually, that's funny. He's not my age, Nick. You might be a tops age. You know what Cooper Flagg's dad does? No. Works for the Celtics? Nothing now. Oh, yeah, hey, good call.

I wouldn't do it either. He was a sports management student at University of Maine. So he's got a background. There's no reason why an NBA team shouldn't be hiring him. Special advisor. Let's go. Oh, man. To the business office or whoever.

I love it. That should be the next lockdown map. Should the maps get ahead of this and hire him right now? He's just saying, you know what? You've hired your dad. Five years ahead of time. Do you know what Nico Harrison said his timeline is for three years? That's what he should be a day.

That's what he said. timeline is you're going to hold them to it i mean it's it is what it is this his contract is three years so we'll see calvin booth's contract was three years and uh the first year was really good first year of nico harrison was really good they made the finals all down hill sense right absolutely i'm gonna be ryan uh they think they think they think ben tenser's gonna gonna pop in there he's the interim right now they think he's gonna they're gonna just bring him on from within but but I don't know if that's necessarily the right call.

You need somebody who can connect with some free agents and trades. And Denver just feels comfortable spinning their tires and doing nothing. I have a guy who has connections all over the league, lots of relationships with players. Nicholas Harrison. He should rebrand. He should take a new job and rebrand as Nicholas Harrison. Just go. All right, go check out all the great shows all throughout Lockdown.

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