Denver Nuggets EVP of Basketball Operations Ben Tenzer joins PHD!

Denver Nuggets EVP of Basketball Operations Ben Tenzer joins PHD!

Ben Tenzer is the executive vice president of basketball operations. Ben, we want to get into some serious basketball talk, but we have uh gym um discussions right now. Are you up for some fun right off the bat? Yeah, what whatever we got, I’m ready. Uh my take, we got a young guy in here. He’s interested in a girl in the gym and and he’s asking people how how do I, you know, meet her as opposed to just coming, hey, my name is uh whatever and how are you, what you’re doing, you uh somebody throw out there, we’ll have a spot for you. And I say you don’t want to be a gym bro and have a girl spot for you. I I think that’s a no no. Yeah. I mean I I wouldn’t go with the spot move. I would just uh you know maybe just try to run really hard in the treble. M make uh show show you’re uh you’re in good shape and maybe you impress her that way. There you go. Out performance performance. Do that. So performance performance based relationship. Performance based relationship. See that’s why he’s an executive. That’s where that’s where he rose through the ranks so quickly. Um Ben, thank you for joining us. Okay, just to get right to it. Um and tremendous off season. Tremendous. Thank you. Where do things stand with Yonas right now? Yeah, everything’s in a really healthy place. We executed the trade uh officially the other day and um he’s back in Lithuania where, you know, I think uh Coach Adelman talked about his vision for him. We’ve talked about it. Um he’s been a guy we’ve coveted for for a long time. We uh looked very closely at training for him at the deadline. Um so when this kind of fell into our lap um we felt like um it was a no-brainer. We felt really lucky and things are in a in a very healthy place with him. Have you or somebody from the organization spoken directly from him and would it be nice if he expressed some desire to be with the Nuggets? Yeah, we’ve spoken to him and his representatives and and have had nothing but a great conversations about his role and how we envision him and how excited we are. Um I don’t want to speak uh to his exact mentality or where he’s at cuz I’ll let him um comment on that when the time is right. But uh nothing but but very healthy and productive conversations about how we see him fitting in uh next season as as a Nugget. And you you say just got it down a couple days. This rumor came out weeks weeks ago. You already announced the the the MPJ trade and and getting Junior back and and bringing Brown back and all that stuff. Why did it seem to take this thing to evolve and take so long from the time the news kind of hit to where we get the announcement was it yesterday? Yesterday, day before yesterday where it officially hit. Yeah. To be honest, there’s just a lot of sequencing with the rules of uh the NBA and free agency and kind of the timeline. So July 1 through 6 is uh the the moratorum. So nothing can happen in that period. Um specifically with the with this Jonas trade, we had to wait for the Michael Porter trade to be complete. Um and then once that was complete, we were able to take Yonas into the um trade exception created by by that trade. So it was just a sequencing kind of a thing with with how this all works. And and once you make that trade official, doesn’t the league still have to put a stamp of approval on it? Uh yeah, I mean once you you know there’s a bunch of legal things that you kind of go through reporting and passing physicals and um but yeah, once you have that call um you know then we’re allowed to publicly announce it and and that’s when um you saw us do that. So kind of last question for me on this Elise, but the expectation is that he will be a Denver Nugget, correct? Yes, absolutely. Okay. Were you I have one more on this. Were you aware that there might be some issues with Parathanos when the trade was done or were you caught by surprise when that all came out? To be I don’t want to speak on um all the specifics out there, but from our perspective, we had we had no issues from our end. you know, he’s he’s under contract in the NBA and um we we we had indications that he was going to honor that contract and um we were we were never worried about um anything going on out there to be honest. I guess I got one more really quick one. We read a report from Serbia that um Nola did speak to him. Is that true? Are you aware of that one way or the other? Yeah, I’m not aware and I’m I’m not going to comment on um those private conversations, but I think we all know Nicole is um you know an unbelievable part of this organization and um the leader and you know I I feel like um he has great relationships with with people um across the board and um yeah it wouldn’t surprise me that they they have a healthy relationship but but to be honest I’m not sure about that specific report. Uh executive vice president of basketball operations Ben Tenzer is with us. been you now bad that that executive to the old title there which means more pressure and more scrutiny and all that different stuff. You you’ve seen we we saw Josh in the press conference basically say listen we gota we got to watch what we’re doing and take care we never want it we never want to get in a situation where we even have to think about trading Nicole Yogic the the the internet runs wild oh they’re thinking about trading uh he also I think in the press conference or maybe when he was talking with us he said listen we’re gonna offer Joker the extension but we’re gonna be honest with you so you can take it now or if you probably wait it’s probably gonna be worth about $80 million more. You guys obviously had that conversation. He didn’t take it right now, but is it surprising to you how fast the wildfire starts to the negative side of all these rumors? ESPN the next day after Joker said, “Uh, I’m not going to sign the extension this year ran the Nuggets are losing Joker all day.” So is it now in this position where you you’re really intent even more so than you were maybe in in past years to what’s going on. Is it surprised you some of the conversations that you read and hear about? Yeah, I mean it’s a it’s a great question because you know being in this role you you do have different responsibilities, but um I I I’m not surprised by all the kind of media um scrutiny and different stories that come out because I feel like um you know the content and all the attention is is part of the good of the business. And I know some sometimes um narratives come out that you know we don’t necessarily agree with or um sometimes it gets spun out of control but uh yeah it’s just part of the business and we understand it and um you know we’re we’re really not worried about um this Nicole thing. You know we we have a great relationship with him. He’s a huge part of our organization for the future and um you know we just feel like he’s going to be a nugget for a long time. Ben, I want to uh go back to Michael Porter Jr. trade. And you know, if I’m being honest, uh, at the time, I felt like that was going to be a tough contract to trade just given the money, the injuries, everything else. Uh, it felt like it’d be a tough trade to me, but it feels like that was a huge domino that allowed you the freedom to make the rest of the moves. Can you kind of break down what that trade did to set the stage for the rest of the offseason? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, obviously, Michael was a huge part of what we’ve done for a long time. um and we drafted him and we won a championship with him and we appreciate all that he’s done for our organization. Um specifically with him with his contract, we were essentially able to move out his contract and bring back Cam Johnson and Valance Ununice um with with uh the salary that went out with his because when when we traded that we were able to bring in Cam and then the the remaining uh trade exception we were able to take in Yonas. So, um it’s simply um just, you know, moving that salary and then adding uh two pieces instead of just having one. So, I think that was the the most enticing part of the trade. Um just kind of opening up flexibility. uh you know, we had this great run in the playoffs and we felt really comfortable with with uh that group moving forward and you know, I think Josh comment on it, we commented on it how um we felt like there was a lot of discussions of just trying to improve internally. Um having said that, our job is to call every team in the league and be aggressive and see what’s going on and what’s motivating them. Um and you know, you’re always trying to get better. So, uh, that, yeah, that was basically the genesis of of that deal. I I going to be longwinded, but try to do it real shortly. I said this past week, and it just hit me, uh, last Wednesday. You lost from that championship team. Took two years to do it, but you still lost Bruce Brown, KCP, and and I think people sleep on Jeff Green and really what he meant to that team that made the championship that year. Not only did you lose three bodies talent-wise that you never really fully replaced at their level, uh you lost three of the toughest guys on your team. Well, now with the trade with Johnson, Hardway, Brucey back, uh and Valenunis, you replace those three basically now with four and and you brought a lot more toughness back to this team on paper in my estimation. Would you agree with that? I would agree with that. Yeah, I think that um you know, you’re always trying to add players that have had experience that have kind of been in the moment before um and that are familiar with our organization like like a Bruce Brown. So, um in terms of being able to add the depth and you know, we we dealt with some injuries in the playoffs. Um you you always just want as many uh able bodies as you can and so we feel like we we did a good job with that. And um to be honest, you never, you know, you have your plan going into free agency and you know, you do the best to execute the plan, but you don’t know if you will or not. So, we we feel really fortunate we were able to execute um the plan the way we did. Are you actively pursuing Al Horford? Um, I’m not going to comment on uh pursuing other players, but I will just say that uh we feel really good about our roster currently and um not not highly motivated to uh to make any other moves right now. Well, one move that you that you are keeping an eye on, I know you were down in Vegas the other day, uh and and you got uh Holmes playing, you know, hurt himself a year ago, almost a year ago. Exactly. Da da da. He’s a big thing. I was told today, you can correct me if I’m wrong, that he will play tonight in game three, that he needs to get playing time. What What was some of that conversation with So, I’m sure that’s more than just months in that staff, you know, they probably conversations with you guys and everybody else as far as getting getting him to play a little bit more and have him in process here in game three. Absolutely. Yeah, we uh we actually had a conversation about that yesterday with our our medical people. you know, Steve Short does a great job leading that department. Um, and Coach Battleman and and um, Inger Mudson, our summerly coach, and our assistant coach, and um, John Wallace and a lot of front office. So, uh, we we, you know, we obviously have a lot of collaboration discussions about all these things. But I think the key for Don is that, uh, we just want him to play as much as he can as long as the medical side um, says there’s no risk, added risk by by him playing more. Um but you know missing a whole year and then coming back and I actually I think a lot of people thought he looked really comfortable so far um and not timid which you never know after an injury um like he had uh you know how he’ll be. So uh but I think the key for him is just continue to play and just continue to develop and get comfortable and um we really feel like the sky is the limit for him this year. Ben, do you have any questions for us? I do not. But it was good hanging with you guys. This is it’s great talking to you and uh I I haven’t seen any review aside from um an A+ for what you guys did and have done and we’re all very excited for this year where the expectation clearly is to win another championship and I I assume you wouldn’t have it any other way. Absolutely. No, we thank you guys so much for the support. Um you know, we’re so excited with where we’re at and uh you know, it’s going to be a really fun year, so we’re we’re pumped. Hey, are are you are you guys doing training camp in San Diego again? Has that been decided or are you guys Yeah, I don’t know. You have to ask Nick if we can confirm that yet. But uh yeah, we we love San Diego for camp. So, uh yeah, keep an eye on that. Hey, the radio program loves spend a week down there. Yeah. What the hell? I mean, we can go live. The best. The best. Yeah, we have a cool We have a couple cool preseason games, too, that that we’ll announce at some point soon. Should be fun. All right. Tonight, the Nuggets um host. They’re the home team tonight against Toronto. Six o’clock. You’re doing the broadcast. I’ll be on the I’m leaving here for there. All right, Ben. We’ll talk to Thank you, Ben. We really appreciate

Nuggets Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Ben Tenzer joined Tyler Polumbus, Scott Hastings, and DMac to share his insights on Jonas Valančiūnas and the rest of the team’s new additions.

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