The Toronto Raptors have promoted assistant coach Nick Nurse as its new head coach going forward, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. It is reportedly a three-year deal worth about $10 million. Nurse will replace Dwane Casey, who was fired after the Raptors posted a franchise-best 59-win season, only to be swept out of the second round by LeBron James and the Cavaliers.
Raptors promote assistant Nick Nurse as new head coach, per report
Nurse has over two decades of coaching experience. He’s also been with Toronto since 2013.
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Nurse has over two decades worth of coaching experience, including several stints as head coach in the NBA D-League. He was named D-League Coach of the Year in 2011 and Iowa Energy (2011) the Rio Grande Valley Vipers (2013) to D-League championships in a three-year span. Nurse also coached in the British Basketball League where he won two BBL championships in 1996 and 2000.
Toronto had been tied to several head coaching candidates, including Spurs assistant Ettoire Messina and G-League Coach of the Year Jerry Stackhouse. But Nurse is familiar with the Raptors’ roster makeup, having been on staff since 2013.
He inherits a roster littered with talent from top to bottom, including an all-star back court in DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, and a bench mob widely considered the best second unit in the NBA. Nurse’s job, now, is to extract even more production out of this team than Casey did — a tall order to fill after the success Toronto enjoyed in the regular season.
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