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Just about 14 months ago, the Denver Nuggets’ season was ended because they couldn’t get stops. The Golden State Warriors, eventual 2021-22 champions, dissected their overmatched defense in a clinical first-round dispatching. Denver lost in five games and posted a dismal 123.4 defensive rating — the worst among 16 playoff squads.

On Tuesday night, the Nuggets ended the season on their own terms because they generated stop after stop and nabbed the franchise’s first title. Along the way, they went 16-4 and posted a 111.0 defensive rating, the fourth-best mark among 16 playoff squads.

That dichotomy can be attributed to offseason moves and the return of Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., both of whom were absent for Denver’s five-game playoff cameo in 2022. Whereas the likes of Monte Morris, Will Barton, Bones Hyland, and Austin Rivers manned the backcourt for the Nuggets against the Warriors, Murray, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Bruce Brown and Christian Braun assumed those duties this year. Those proved to be major upgrades defensively, offering more size, mobility, dexterity and screen navigation on the perimeter.

The revamped guard rotation allowed Nikola Jokic to go from the linchpin of the defense — a role for which he is ill-suited — to a key cog of a good defense (though, he was the linchpin of the Finals). It lifted some of the burden off his shoulders and broadened his margin of error, which was razor thin last postseason.

Much of the blame for Denver’s defensive ineptitude in the Golden State series centered on Jokic and his limitations. Yet he was regularly having to account for ball-handlers and screeners as his guards were stuck trying to play catch up and never rejoined the action. None of Morris, Barton, or Hyland provided concise screen navigation or strength at the point of attack. Caldwell-Pope, Braun, and Brown did. Folks forget a play like this because the Nuggets were demolished, but they happened throughout the series. Jokic was given an impossible job doomed for failure. This year, it became much more reasonable and ended with success of the highest order.

The analysis was results-based, not process-based, just like there’s now a swelling tide to crown Jokic a staunchly stellar defender after this past series, when he excelled and Denver won handily. Rather, he is in the midpoint of those extremes, a good defender finally surrounded by complementary personnel who rose to the occasion in a favorable matchup for a dominant five-game showing.

After Damian Lillard, Chris Paul, Devin Booker, and Stephen Curry decimated Denver’s defense in consecutive playoff appearances, the prevailing narrative emerged that potent off-the-dribble threats were the path to counter Jokic and magnify his defensive shortcomings. The Nuggets faced various pull-up creators en route to a ring, headlined by Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Anthony Edwards. The result was an .800 win percentage and feisty, overwhelming defense.

Early in this last series, the Nuggets danced between playing drop and keeping Jokic at the level, given Miami’s brigade of shooters and dribble handoff threats. Because of Jokic’s cumbersome lateral quickness and vertical explosion, they’ve often stationed him at the level to try and deploy his size and dexterity as an impediment for ball-handlers. Yet as the Finals progressed, he increasingly adhered to deep drop coverage. Denver grew content to gauge the Heat’s pull-up shooting and didn’t want to create 4-on-3 chances for Adebayo. Those instincts aged well.

Miami entered the series with an effective field goal percentage of 45.2 off the bounce in the playoffs. Against Denver, it tumbled to 37.7. That’s not how the Heat offense thrived amid their Finals run. Jokic and the Nuggets dared them to win that way. They couldn’t. The big fella was disciplined and active in drop coverage. He engaged ball-handlers long enough for his teammates to recover and prevented Adebayo from finding many free lanes all the way to the rim. He knew when to commit to drivers and when to stay home on Adebayo’s dives.

The Heat ran many pick-and-rolls at him. It didn’t matter. It was some of the stingiest drop coverage I’ve seen him employ throughout his NBA career. If Miami did find pocket pass windows to Adebayo, they hardly occurred when Adebayo had an angle past Jokic. Instead, he had to settle for midrange jumpers. Pocket passes with a runway were squashed out because of Jokic’s positioning and timing. He and the Nuggets wrapped up these Finals sporting a 106.2 defensive rating, cobbling together plenty of possessions just like this.

Almost entirely veering away from slotting Jokic at the level was a vital tweak for Denver. Adebayo’s playmaking chances evaporated. He tallied nine dimes the first two games and just seven over the final three. Rarely did Miami’s offense jolt the Nuggets into a scramble. Jokic’s aptitude in drop, paired with effective point-of-attack options, allowed them to play 2-on-2. Their brazen, seemingly automatic pre-rotations from a low man were less frequent. The Heat were left trying to boogie off the bounce, despite lacking the juice to do so.

With Jimmy Butler passive as a downhill scorer (likely due somewhat to the sprained ankle he suffered in the second round), nobody aside from Caleb Martin could vigorously attack the rim for the Heat. That boded well for the Serbian wunderkind, who acted as a consistent deterrent and influencer around the basket. He short-circuited drives. He lurked around the paint. He rotated and recovered. He held his ground against contact.

The Heat shot 17.2 percent worse than their average when he was the primary defender on field goals within 6 feet. They also walked into this matchup with a 29.5 percent rim frequency through three rounds, but only 23.4 percent of their shots came at the hoop in the Finals. Jokic ensured their interior endeavors would be both hellish and less popular experiences.

Some of the reason Denver can play defensive stalwarts like Aaron Gordon, Braun, Brown, and Caldwell-Pope without worry of any floor-spacing or offensive quandaries is because of Jokic. Gordon punished smaller defenders inside and as a cutter, opportunities that often stemmed from attention Jokic commanded or the cross-matches he fashioned as a rebounder and subsequent transition engine. Braun’s cutting was amplified by Jokic’s immediate processing speed and extensive passing web. Brown could commandeer ball-screens because teams would sell out on Jokic’s rolls to the rim. Caldwell-Pope ran dribble handoffs into quick pull-ups because Jokic freed him with hulking screens.

His mastery allows virtually any lineup to succeed offensively. All four of those players can fill different roles and matchups defensively, and they did on their path to a championship. Jokic’s offensive shapeshifting means more wiggle room for defensive shapeshifters. His defensive responsibilities are clarified as a byproduct of his offensive dominion.

None of the offensive exploits should overshadow Jokic’s defensive congruence across an array of schemes this postseason. He navigated drop. He stuck at the level of the screen. He flirted with some switching. He hung in the corner on non-shooters to be a low man. He and the Nuggets oscillated between his responsibilities resting on the backline and the frontline, a testament to the versatility of he and his teammates.

Defense is a task of details. Success is not replicable solely because of effort. There are angles and subtle events that cannot be guaranteed every trip down. Slight changes in offensive positioning and spacing may arise. A steadfast, buzzing motor certainly never hurt, though, and Jokic flew around the court in the Finals. All the while, however, he didn’t let that impose on his feel for the game and astute positioning. He scurried out to shooters while avoiding reckless contests. He spiked rebounds off the glass to himself and away from swirling limbs. He tipped rebounds out of Adebayo’s clutches. Simply put, the dude played really freaking hard defensively.

For years, the Warriors and their grandiose shooting warped the idea of what viable, title-caliber defense could resemble. Drop coverage was a dinosaur exiled by Golden State’s meteor. Switching and rangy, small-ball lineups were the future.

Yet, here we are, a day removed from a team earning a championship, partly because of its tremendous defense. For at least five of those games, the bedrock of that unit was a 7-footer short on mobility or hops who adhered to drop coverage and smothered the opposition while doing so. Let it be a reminder: the winning formula in this league contains no absolutes, only historic greats doing so however their greatness dictates. Nikola Jokic is the latest example.

Tory Lanez’s sentencing for shooting Megan Thee Stallion has been delayed by the request of his defense attorneys, according to freelance journalist Meghann Cuniff. After prosecutors recommended 13 years in prison, citing Tory’s plans to antagonize Megan in the lead-up to the trial, including trying to crash her 2021 Rolling Loud Miami set with DaBaby, Judge David Herriford granted a continuance in order to allow time for Tory’s attorneys to argue for a shorter sentence.

Tory was found guilty in December 2022 of shooting Meg in the summer of 2020 after a disagreement. Although Tory maintained his innocence in the intervening three years, he also failed to present a reasonable alternative explanation for the bullet fragments in Megan’s feet — and his defense’s star witness ended up confirming that it was Tory who held the gun all along. But the impetus behind prosecutors’ insistence on such a harsh sentence stemmed more from Tory’s actions after the shooting.

During the trial, Meg admitted that she wished Tory had actually killed her because of the harassment she received in the years leading up to the trial. During that time, social media users expressed doubt in her account of the events leading to her being shot (and indeed, that she was even shot in the first place, despite medical professionals confirming the bullet fragments left in her feet after surgery), and even called her an outright liar — all goaded by Tory, who claimed in his music and online that he was being framed.

Tory’s attempts to dodge accountability have included requesting a new trial (denied), trying to have the judge disqualified, and hiring Suge Knight’s old lawyer to file an appeal. A new sentencing date has been scheduled for August 7.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of many GOP members of Congress with an apparent room-temperature IQ, but instead of hiding that fact, she continues to proudly put her dipshittery on display anytime a mic is shoved in her face.

For proof, you can enjoy this short clip of Greene — a woman who has blamed wildfires on Jewish space lasers and who thinks solar panels stop working when the sun sets — insisting that she wants her staff to remain as uneducated as she is. The confession came after Dr. Rochelle Wolensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and a person who’s presumably spent years studying how viruses and vaccines work, was forced to dumb things down for Greene and her pals. Wolensky was trying to explain that the number of “adverse effects” tied to a certain vaccine doesn’t necessarily mean that every reported incident was actually caused by getting jabbed. She attempted to use an example of a car wreck happening after a person got a vaccine as something that would be reported as an “adverse effect” but really had no connection to getting vaccinated — which is why her office investigates every claim.

But Greene, whose elevator has never really reached the top floor, just wasn’t getting it, so Wolensky offered to educate her staff on the procedure for investigating reports. That offer gave us this gem of a pull quote from Greene: “I don’t want my staff educated!”

No, we’d think not, especially since even sharing one brain cell amongst them would mean Greene’s staffers were geniuses compared to her.

You can enjoy the absurdity of the full interaction below:

Next year’s Grammy Awards will have a variety of new categories, addressing some of the criticisms that prior ceremonies missed out on crucial opportunities to honor works in genres that are often overlooked by the mainstream tastes of the Recording Academy at large. The Recording Academy added three new categories, including best African music performance, best alternative jazz album, and best pop dance recording, according to Billboard.

Since voters can only vote in three genre-specific fields (in addition to the general categories), the producer of the year, non-classical and songwriter of the year, non-classical categories are being moved to the general field where best new artist and album, record, and song of the year already reside. This turns the Big Four into the Big Six, I guess.

In a statement, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said:

“The Recording Academy is proud to announce these latest category changes to our awards process. These changes reflect our commitment to actively listen and respond to the feedback from our music community, accurately represent a diverse range of relevant musical genres, and stay aligned with the ever-evolving musical landscape. By introducing these three new categories, we are able to acknowledge and appreciate a broader array of artists – and relocating the producer of the year and songwriter of the year categories to the general field ensures that all our voters can participate in recognizing excellence in these fields. We are excited to honor and celebrate the creators and recordings in these categories, while also exposing a wider range of music to fans worldwide.”

The new awards bring the total number of categories up to 94, the most the Grammys have had since 2010’s peak of 109. Billboard has a complete breakdown of the new categories, which will help honor artists in genres like Afrobeats, Amapiano, and High Life, while reducing friction when artists like Beyoncé work in genres like dance so they aren’t competing with full-time EDM artists.

A couple weeks ago, Lizzo saw a rude comment about her body on Twitter and justifiably launched into a tweetstorm, writing in part, “Y’all don’t know how close I be to giving up on everyone and quitting and enjoying my money and my man on a F*CKING FARM…”

SZA was apparently an onlooker of this saga and today, she got heated as she shared her perspective.

In a tweet from earlier today, she started, “I be wondering where all the virtue signaling ,well spoken sh*t talking , internet warriors are when someone genuine needs defending . Where the f*ck do y’all be at for lizzo ? Do y’all actually know how to support others or only tear them down [thinking emoji].”

Somebody responded, “So people don’t go to war for Lizzo in this app?” SZA replied, “NOT EF*CKINGNUFF . For as much free love, encouragement and positivity she embodies n shares on every app daily ? The ratios’s don’t add up .” She continued in another tweet, “I also dgaf who don’t agree . It’s been on my mind for a minute .. makes me upset. jus want everyone to practice kindness and shutting tf up more often cause G*DDAMN ITS UGLY OUTSIDE ALREADY . Why add ?”

Lizzo is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Winning an NBA championship — or a championship in any sport, really — allows athletes for an opportunity to reflect. While it seemed like Nikola Jokic’s number one priority in the aftermath of the Denver Nuggets’ win over the Miami Heat on Monday night to clinch the the first title in franchise history was to leave the country as soon as possible and return to Serbia, he did get the chance to reflect on things during a sit down with Malika Andrews of ESPN.

Andrews asked a pretty simple question: What does the guy who was drafted 41st overall in the 2014 NBA Draft and famously got selected while a Taco Bell commercial played think about the circumstances under which he entered the league now? Here’s what Jokic had to say about all that:

“They didn’t believe in the fat boy,” Jokic said. “It seems like it worked out. Don’t bet against the fat boy.”

Jokic, of course, came into the NBA with some optimism that he could be a good player based on his time in the Adriatic League, but there were major questions about whether he’d be able to keep up physically due to his frame and lack of foot speed. He, as it turns out, very much could.

After weeks of constant talks about Doja Cat’s forthcoming album, the project’s release just may be on the horizon. Last night, the Grammy Award-winning musician’s record label mistakenly spilled the beans about Doja’s lead single. Although the entertainer has walked back the title of the project’s title and its classified genre, based on the marketing error, fans learned the song’s name and release date.

So, what is Doja Cat’s new single’s official release date? After her record company deactivated the rapper’s pre-save link, Doja Cat took to Twitter to share the track’s cover art. The artwork was captioned, “6.16.23 [blood drop emoji],” essentially confirming the label’s initial campaign blast.

When she first shared that a new album was in the works during interviews, her sonic influences changed from rave-influenced, rap, R&B, punk, to simply not pop. At the time the only concrete thing about the album was its title, Hellmouth, but Doja Cat later walked that back, saying, “The whole album is no longer rap yall its rock/spoken word, and the album title is not Hellmouth anymore.” The musician later sarcastically announced it would be called Moist Holes.

Outside of Doja sharing the single’s cover art and pending release date, nothing further is known about the single at this time.

Is Better Call Saul better than Breaking Bad?

It’s a trick question: both shows are great, art is subjective, it’s not a competition, etc. But if, hypothetically speaking, you do prefer Better Call Saul to Breaking Bad, creator Vince Gilligan doesn’t blame you. “Half the people I run into — maybe more than half — are bigger fans of Saul than Breaking Bad,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I thought I’d hate hearing that, but it turns out, I don’t. The life lesson is to not overthink things.”

Either way, everything’s coming up Mike Ehrmantraut.

In that same interview, Better Call Saul co-creator Peter Gould also discussed whether he and Gilligan would ever return to the “Gilliverse,” as he calls it.

“Vince and I both decided it would be good to give the Gilliverse a little bit of a rest,” he explained. “But we had a big board with ideas or scenes we were interested in or would be fun — and there were a lot of them still on that board when we finished up the show. Maybe that’s a good thing, though. You want to leave something you didn’t get to.”

Skinny Pete: The Untold Story, coming to AMC+ in 2025.

(Via the Los Angeles Times)

Julia Jacklin shared a brand new cover of Roland S. Howard’s “Shivers,” after being asked to join a compilation to honor the song’s original producer, the late Tony Cohen.

Jacklin adds a dreamy, heightened layer to the already-emotional song that was recorded by Howard and Nick Cave’s The Boys Next Door band.

“It’s been covered a lot, but it’s a special one for me,” Jacklin shared in a statement. “It was one of the first songs I ever learnt to play. Many Sydney bars, venues, and open mic nights have heard me sing this song. Howard wrote it at 16 and I’ve always loved how much the lyrics capture that type of unbridled, dramatic teenage infatuation. The kind that physically hurts but also makes you laugh at yourself.”

Other artists on the Cohen tribute compilation include fellow Australian acts like RVG, Leah Senior, Grace Cummings, and more. There is also a joint book called Half Deaf, Completely Mad that John Olson wrote about the producer as part of the honorary release.

Next month, Jacklin will be kicking off a new North American tour tied to her latest album, Pre Pleasure. More information along with a complete list of dates, can be found here.

Check out Jacklin’s “Shivers” cover above.

In the slog of the fourth quarter of Game 5 of the NBA Finals, a game with energy but no direction, Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon got switched onto hot-shooting Heat guard Kyle Lowry with Denver up 3 and the shot clock waning. Lowry faked right, crossed to his left, and rose up for a pull-up jumper. Only the space he created with his hesitation wasn’t there anymore, and Gordon swallowed the shot whole.

In the chaos and pressure of that closeout game, Gordon and Denver showed again that they were just as big, strong, and physical as the biggest bullies of the NBA postseason.

The Nuggets always seemed to know the best version of their team was the biggest one. After cycling through many big bodies — and big names — as frontcourt partners for Nikola Jokic, the Denver Nuggets struck gold at the 2021 trade deadline when they swung for Gordon, a bruising forward in his athletic prime.

These NBA Finals have highlighted what makes Gordon special and why he was the right fit for the team. Gordon opened Game 1 relentlessly scoring over Heat guards on post seals, then in Games 3 and 4 piled up points as he cut to the basket for layups and dunks and mashed Miami on the offensive glass. Gordon was the final ingredient for this team because he overpowers everyone, but also skilled and smart enough to play alongside Jokic and Jamal Murray as a cleanup man on both ends of the floor. The 2014 No. 4 overall pick symbolizes the evolution of Denver from a deeper, more balanced team to one determined to bully its opponents.

Today’s Nuggets are the bigger team in nearly every matchup they face, including the Cinderella Heat. Every player in the starting lineup is big (at least 200 lbs.), tall (at least 6-5), and has long arms (at least a 6-6 wingspan). In these NBA Finals, they out-rebounded the Heat 232-178, and scored more points in the paint per 100 possessions than anyone in the NBA playoffs by a wide margin.

The Nuggets are not the expected prototype for modern NBA big ball. As the league transitioned out of the Warriors’ dynasty, teams realized that it was impossible to replicate Draymond Green, Kevin Durant, or Steph Curry — and they stopped trying to. Even the 2022 champion Warriors played much bigger than they did during the prime Death Lineup years. Toronto has tried to build a roster without a traditional point guard or center, in which everyone is tall and skilled. Milwaukee uses the versatility of Giannis Antetokounmpo on both ends to dominate the paint and swarm opponents. But while Denver has not finished as a top-10 defensive team in any of its past five seasons on their way to the playoffs (they were 11th twice), the Nuggets have shown how to use big ball to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.

Long vulnerable in pick-and-roll defense, the Nuggets solved their biggest problem by simply getting bigger around Jokic. In the 2021 playoffs with Murray out, Denver got carved up by Damian Lillard and Chris Paul in back-to-back rounds when they could not cover enough space to take away the paint and contest jump shots. That postseason, they allowed opponents to shoot the second-highest percentage from behind the arc and the seventh-highest percentage at the rim. This year, they are middle of the pack in both by deploying larger bodies at every position with more aggressive gameplans.

These Nuggets swipe, crowd, and bump opposing offenses to make up for their lack of explosive athleticism. They are lowest among NBA playoff teams in turnover creation, and forced hardly any against Miami in the Finals. But they succeed by sending scorers the wrong direction, forcing them off balance, and generally making every possession a chore for the opposing offense.

The Nuggets are happy to let certain shooters take threes, and young help defenders like Michael Porter Jr., Christian Braun, and even Jamal Murray are smarter about how to rotate within the gameplan. Porter in particular has gradually learned how to use his 7-foot wingspan to his advantage. Anyone he guards can count on a hand in their face at all times.

When opponents do slice into the lane, the Nuggets collapse aggressively, a jumble of hip checks and raised arms greeting any ball-handler who flies inside. Game 3 of the Finals may have been their finest defensive performance of the entire season, turning Miami’s intensity back onto them and forcing the Heat into 37 percent shooting and just 20 team assists. Like Jokic, Denver’s supporting cast has taken its cues from ball-hawk NFL linebackers, swiping downward on any driving scorer to disrupt their rhythm or jar the ball loose.

Denver’s point of attack defense may have benefited most of all from adding size to the roster. Gordon was added specifically to be the Nuggets’ explosive wing stopper after a conference finals loss to LeBron James, but he is the rare athlete who can move his feet well enough to stop a Jimmy Butler drive and also have the strength to fight back against a Karl-Anthony Towns post-up. He is a perfect complement to Jokic at 6-8 and 235 pounds, providing Denver with a much-needed switchable, versatile frontcourt defender. The league may have forgotten about Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, but Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth did not, trading for the 3-and-D wing last summer to complete Denver’s starting lineup. BBall-Index graded KCP in the top 3 percent of all NBA players as an off-ball chaser and a ball screen navigator this season. He was a steal for a team that needed more from its help defense and perimeter stoppage. Bruce Brown, also added last offseason, essentially turned Denver’s fortunes against Phoenix’s stars all by himself. He is technically a point guard, but he’s 6-4 and over 200 pounds. Even Murray has had great moments battling against Butler and others in the Finals.

The higher volume of threes gets the attention in the modern NBA, but the most important thing an NBA defense can do is not contest threes, but to take up the space created by volume shooting. The Nuggets identified that Jokic had a weakness against dynamic guards who could score in the pick-and-roll. They understood that because of his low center of gravity and lack of leaping ability — as well as his huge workload on offense — that wasn’t going to change. So Booth and Co. subtly, offseason by offseason, found and developed players who could combine strength and length in a way that instead bumped opponents off their spots, contested shots more consistently, and could execute gameplans built around Jokic’s limitations. It paid off.

Of course, the Nuggets also couldn’t ignore their true identity as an offensive juggernaut. They couldn’t afford to simply acquire defensive difference-makers. Their size and intelligence helps on offense, too. Murray has adapted his game considerably in the Finals, getting downhill early and often, averaging double-digit assists and living in the paint. A traditional scoring guard would only be so effective playing off Jokic. Murray has added muscle over time, and is on his way back to the 70-plus percent at-rim shooting he boasted before he tore his ACL. He can post up smaller guards, too. The two-man game works because Denver can invert it, and not just because Jokic is comfortable on the outside. Murray can get into the teeth of the defense and take advantage of that space.

This series has also been the apotheosis of Gordon’s adaptation into a paint killer, overpowering guards and wings, owning the glass, and flying in for dunks and layups from every angle. It certainly helped Porter weather his cold streak that he could use his size to shoot 72% at the rim in the playoffs. And the power of Jokic is that smart players like Brown and KCP also learn quickly that they also need to start cutting and moving if they want to win and get minutes. Every addition the Nuggets have made has been with complementing their star duo in mind, players to both cover up weaknesses and amplify the strengths of Jokic and Murray.

“You have to have positionless guys, guys who can contain the ball and make shots,” Booth told Yahoo Sports of his roster-building approach. “Everybody wants two-way players, but [Jokić] likes to play with guys who know how to play basketball the right way.”

The past five MVPs have gone to Jokic, Antetokounmpo, and Joel Embiid. To win in the NBA today, you have to match those 7-foot unicorns who can handle the ball and bully you inside. Unless you acquire one of your own such players (hello, San Antonio), your answer for them will probably have to utilize all five players. This is where Denver’s approach is even more brilliant. They are already one step ahead of how teams might respond to them. By building big, the Nuggets not only shored up their team to make it a champion, they also beat out opponents in the big ball arms race that they have accelerated.

Denver manipulates space on offense better than most any team in the league, and has assembled a unit that clogs it on defense. With their core most all under contract (aside from Bruce Brown, who could be a hot commodity in free agency this summer) and still fairly young (not to mention Braun and Peyton Watson waiting in the wings like a lab-created next generation for Denver to mold), the rest of the NBA has to operate as if the Nuggets will continue to be the defining team of this moment.

The question of how you stop the Nuggets has been raised throughout the playoffs as they churned out double-digit wins and lost just four times. The recipe includes a heavy dose of paint pressure, transition scoring, and threes. It also means matching Denver’s physicality and IQ. But as the NBA heads into its first offseason attempting to thwart the Nuggets, that recipe also has to include players who are big, tall, and strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Denver’s core.