Denver, CO
Nuggets name Ben Tenzer executive VP of basketball operations, add Jon Wallace to front office
More than a month after their season ended and more than two months after firing general manager Calvin Booth, the Nuggets have finally restocked their front office.
Ben Tenzer has been named Denver’s executive vice president of basketball operations, multiple league sources told The Denver Post on Monday. The Nuggets are also hiring Jon Wallace from the Minnesota Timberwolves to take over as executive vice president of player personnel.
Tenzer finished the 2024-25 season as interim general manager after the Nuggets fired Booth three games before the NBA playoffs in April, along with head coach Michael Malone.
Now two longtime members of the organization have been promoted to help fill the voids. New head coach David Adelman was an assistant under Malone since 2017. Tenzer first worked for the Nuggets as a student intern during the 2005-06 season, while he was a junior at the University of Colorado. He left the team in 2009 to attend Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, then returned full-time as director of team operations in 2013, under then-GM Tim Connelly.
When Connelly left for Minnesota in 2022, he took Wallace with him. The former Georgetown star guard had spent three years in the Nuggets’ front office, most recently as a scouting coordinator. Now he’s returning to Denver to collaborate with a fellow disciple of Connelly’s tenure.
In lieu of hiring a general manager by title, the Nuggets are assigning two executives with complementary strengths to oversee basketball operations on a day-to-day basis. Tenzer has long been a salary cap and CBA expert for Denver’s front office. Wallace, 39, is regarded as a bright basketball mind with useful background as a player. Both will report to team president and KSE vice chairman Josh Kroenke, who recently said that “I need to be more hands-on in the moments of transition.”
It’s an unorthodox management structure that team owner Stan Kroenke has used in the past. From 2006 to 2010, Mark Warkentien served as vice president of basketball ops, and Rex Chapman was vice president of player personnel. The Nuggets made the playoffs every year of their tenure but never escaped the first round except in 2009, when they reached the Western Conference Finals and Warkentien was named NBA Executive of the Year.
A former Basketball Without Borders instructor and Summer League operations coordinator, Tenzer was most recently the general manager of Denver’s G League affiliate team, the Grand Rapids Gold. Wallace was general manager for the Iowa Wolves, Minnesota’s G League affiliate.
They’re joining a short list of active NBA general managers and top executives with backgrounds as a G League GM: Sean Marks (Brooklyn), Mike Gansey (Cleveland), Elton Brand (Philadelphia), Trajan Langdon (Detroit) and Anthony Parker (Orlando).
“Ben and I have been spending a lot of time together, talking about each individual player, how we think we can improve them as individuals and within the context of the team,” Josh Kroenke said in May, early in what turned out to be a long-winded search for Booth’s replacement. “Ben has a lot of great ideas of how we can improve the front office, both internally and externally. And I’m also soliciting a lot of opinions outside.”
The Nuggets conducted a handful of interviews recently with individuals who were perceived by league sources to be second-in-command candidates, especially with assistant general manager Tommy Balcetis not being retained. Like Tenzer, Wallace has no prior experience as an NBA general manager.
They’re tasked with maneuvering the Nuggets out of a corner. Denver’s payroll is bogged down by high-dollar contracts that render it difficult to improve roster depth, particularly under the constraints of a new NBA collective bargaining agreement that took effect on July 1, 2023 — three weeks after the Nuggets won their first championship.
Since then, Denver has been eliminated in the second round of the playoffs two consecutive years, both times in a Game 7. The team’s most significant roster casualties have been the losses of Bruce Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in free agency. Still, Denver fielded the seventh-most expensive roster in the league last season, and it’s projected by Hoops Hype to have the fifth-highest payroll in 2025-26 when a max contract extension takes effect for Jamal Murray.
Tenzer and Wallace will have the taxpayer mid-level exception at their disposal this offseason, allowing them to sign a free agent at a salary of up to $5.7 million. Other than that, they’re limited to veteran minimum contracts. Denver is the only team in the NBA without a pick in the upcoming draft, which begins this Wednesday — two days after the front-office hires.
Tenzer and the Nuggets’ current scouting staff have been formulating a pre-draft plan since Booth was fired.
Three roster spots are vacant as the new regime begins — those filled last season by DeAndre Jordan, Vlatko Cancar and Russell Westbrook, who is declining a player option. Among Denver’s first decisions will be whether to re-sign any of those players or bring in newcomers.
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Originally Published:
Denver, CO
Fire destroys home under construction in northwest Denver
DENVER (KDVR) — An early morning fire on Friday left a home completely ablaze in the Highlands neighborhood, just a week after another house under construction went up in flames in the same area.
The Denver Fire Department shared photos of the incident, as crews were called to 3643 Mariposa, where images show a fully consumed home under construction.
“I think they [firefighters] kicked in the neighbor’s door just to make sure nobody was at home,” neighbors Lucy and Kyle said. “Some of the other houses, their windows got blown out from the heat!”
Just 11 days earlier, on June 8, a home under construction caught fire in the same neighborhood near West 33rd and Navajo. Nobody was hurt in either fire.
And just about two years earlier, in July, another fire in the same area ignited around West 36th and Osage. All of the properties are/were under development by the same group.
“I wasn’t present for any of the fires,” Ryan Yoffe, a member of the developer group, said.
Yoffe does say he thinks he knows how the last two fires had been set, saying it’s the City of Denver that needs to do better with surveillance.
“It’s likely related to the amount of homelessness in the area, looking for properties under construction to live in or burn down,” Yoffe said. “The City and the Police Department need to do a better job patrolling to limit the number of homeless people camping in the neighborhood.”
Denver Fire Department officials say the most recent incidents are under investigation, but that nobody was hurt in either.
Denver, CO
Rockies ride Kyle Freeland’s gem, Braxton Fulford’s double to 4-3 win over Pirates
The night belonged to Kyle Freeland, who joined the 1,000 K Club. The moment belonged to Braxton Fulford. The ninth inning — and a big sigh of relief — belonged to closer Antonio Senzatela.
Fulford hit a two-run, two-out, pinch-hit double in the eighth inning off Mason Montgomery to lead the Rockies to a 4-3 win over the Pirates at Coors Field in front of a Friday night crowd of 33,596.
Fulford drove in Tyler Freeman and Cole Carrigg, who scratched out back-to-back two-out singles off Montgomery.
“I had been warming up in the cage for that at-bat for a couple of innings, so I felt pretty prepared,” Fulford said. “I got an advantage count (3-1) and I knew he was going to come with the heater and I was all over it.”
Fulford caught Montgomery for three seasons at Texas Tech, so he knew the left-hander’s tendencies.
“It’s kind of unfortunate for pitchers that you catch, because you kind of get to see their stuff,” Fulford said. “You kind of understand more of who they are. So I do feel like I had the advantage there.”
In the ninth, the Pirates loaded the bases against Senzatela with no outs on a single by Marcell Ozuna and an error on a groundball by shortstop Ezequiel Tovar. But Senzatela struck out pinch-hitter Tyler Callihan and induced Jared Triolo to ground to Tovar, who started the game-ending double play.
“It was kind of a crazy ending to the game — bases loaded and no outs,” Freeland said. ” ‘Senza’ got a big punchout in that situation, picks up Tovar. Then Tovar gets another opportunity to turn a double play, and he gets it done.”
Before all of the late-game drama, Freeland pitched his best game of the season: 7 1/3 innings, two runs allowed on four hits, no walks, and eight strikeouts. It marked the fourth time in his career that he pitched 7 1/3 or more innings.
“Tonight, I thought he was absolutely exceptional,” manager Warren Schaeffer said. “I thought his body language was impressive. He attacked the strike zone — relentlessly. His heater had good ‘vert’ tonight. The breaker was good. It seemed like he was in control all night.”
“Gritty” is the word often used to describe Freeland. Dominant was a more apt description on Friday night. History-making works, too. Freeland’s eight Ks gave him 1,001 for his career, joining right-hander German Marquez (1,069) as the only two pitchers in franchise history to eclipse 1,000. Freeland struck out Marcell Ozuna in the seventh for No. 1,000, and then promptly fanned Brandon Lowe for 1,001.
The hard-core Rockies fans behind the dugout gave Freeland a standing ovation.
“I’m very grateful for the fans always supporting me, and for making it this long in my career to reach some of these milestones, especially with one ballclub,” said Freeland, who struck out eight and walked none for the second time in his career. “I definitely hear those fans when I pop out of the dugout after every inning.”
The 33-year-old Denver native blanked the Pirates for the first seven innings, giving up just two hits. Pittsburgh finally got to Freeland in the eighth, putting up back-to-back doubles by Esmerlyn Valdez and Triolo to cut Colorado’s lead to 2-1. Up to that point, it looked as if Freeland had the juice to throw a complete game, especially since he threw just 81 pitches.
Freeland was pulled in the eighth for right-hander Jaden Hill, who gave up an RBI single up the middle to pinch-hitter Bryan Reynolds, tying the game, 2-2. Then Hill hit leadoff hitter Spencer Horowitz, and Nick Gonzalez scorched a triple off the right-field wall, scoring Horowitz and giving the Pirates a 3-2 lead.
Colorado staked a 1-0 lead in the third against hard-throwing right-hander Bubba Chandler. Willi Castro’s single scored Ezequiel Tovar, who reached on a bunt single.
The Rockies extended their lead to 2-0 in the fourth on rookie first baseman TJ Rumfield’s leadoff homer. He sent Chandler’s first-pitch slider 427 feet into the right-field seats. It was Rumfield’s 11th homer and his 38th RBI.
Pitching probables
Saturday: Pirates RHP Paul Skenes (6-6, 2.85 ERA) at Rockies RHP Tomoyuki Sugano (7-4, 4.54), 7:10 p.m.
Sunday: Pirates RHP Jared Jones (1-1, 6.23) at Rockies RHP Michael Lorenzen (2-8, 7.13), 1:10 p.m.
TV: Rockies.TV
Radio: KOA 850 AM/94.1 FM
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Denver, CO
Man arrested on suspicion of murder in Denver shooting near South Park Hill, Hale
Denver police arrested a 35-year-old man on suspicion of first-degree murder in a fatal shooting near East Colfax Avenue and North Dahlia Street.
Joseph York was arrested Thursday after detectives identified him as a suspect through interviews and surveillance video, the Denver Police Department said in a news release Friday.
Detectives believe York was arguing with the victim, 25-year-old Elijah Barr, before the shooting in the early hours of June 7, the Denver Police Department said in a news release Friday. The intersection is between the city’s South Park Hill and Hale neighborhoods.
Barr was found with multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the hospital.
York is being held without bail in the Downtown Detention Center and is set to appear in Denver County Court on Saturday, jail records show.
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