👋 Good Morning!

The NBA Draft kicked off on Wednesday night and for the second year in a row a player that grew up in Colorado was selected in the first round.

After the Lakers selected Dalton Knecht 17th overall in 2024, the Kings landed Nique Clifford via a trade with the Thunder on Wednesday night. The CSU star was the 24th overall pick in the class and the only player selected from the Mountain West.

Knecht grew up in Thornton, attended Prairie View High School and was a star at the University of Northern Colorado prior to transferring to Tennessee for his final season of college basketball.

Clifford is a Colorado Springs native who went to the Vanguard School before initially attending CU. He then transferred to CSU where he helped lead the Rams to a couple of NCAA Tournament wins in his two seasons in the program.

I always love to see kids from Colorado play their way into the league. Congrats, Nique. Go be great.

— Justin Michael

The first round of the NBA Draft has concluded and as stoked as I was to see Nique Clifford become CSU’s third first-round pick in the modern era, having to sit through over two hours of that broadcast was exhausting.

ESPN’s decision to force-feed us Stephen A. Smith, Kendrick Perkins and Co. in every single element of the network’s basketball coverage has worn me down. The NBA Finals were just as tiring.

Stephen A is great at what he does when it’s in the appropriate setting. It’s why First Take has been a staple of their programming for close to two decades. But the difference between how ESPN covers the NBA vs. the NFL is absurd. If you want actual basketball talk, you’re not going to get much of it from the world wide leader, not even on draft night.

One other thing, the NBA needs to find a solution to the players putting on hats of teams they’re not actually going to play for. I understand that technically trades don’t go through until after the draft but it’s so silly to watch half of the players take their photos in the wrong team’s colors.

If you’re looking for more basketball talk with your draft coverage, check out last night’s DNVR Nuggets live stream. Adam Mares, Brendan Vogt, Andre Simone and many great guests broke down every pick.

WATCH: DNVR Nuggets NBA Draft livestream

The NFL recently released its All Quarter Century Team. How about one that’s Broncos specific?

READ: Broncos All Quarter Century Team | by Henry Chisholm

The Avs don’t have any early-round picks in the upcoming NHL Draft. But the DNVR Avalanche crew will be live and reacting to all of the latest news around the league on Friday.

In the meantime, check out all of the other great Avs content we have on YouTube.