In the Summer of 2002, Nick Nurse was assistant of the Great Britain national team, which was preparing for the Olympic games.
Nurse hadn’t had an easy ride to get to that moment or become an assistant coach to the British national team. He had studied and played for the University of Northern Iowa, and when he finished college, he became an assistant coach. He won the NBA championship with Toronto Raptors, as well as a D-League title with Rio Grande Valley Vipers.
Nick Nurse – European starts
He went to Grand View College in Iowa when he was only 23 years old, becoming the country’s youngest university coach. Still, in his twenties, he decided to try his luck on the old continent. He started out as a player-coach in the British Basketball League’s Derby Storm. That was the beginning of a European journey that led him to spend more than a decade training in Britain, with stages London Towers, and Brighton as a head coach.
Nick Nurse – Comeback to the US
In 2006, at the age of 39, he concluded that it was time to leave the “underworld” and return to the United States to try to carve out a career at home. He had identified a way to earn a living on the bench, and it had to do with a developmental league that was beginning to grow. But, nobody from NBA teams wanted to hire him for an assistant coach position.
Nick Nurse – Iowa Energy
What can you do when you know your future, but there aren’t enough positions to get a job in that league? You create your own team. Nurse, of course, didn’t have the money to do it. But he knew the perfect place (Iowa), and he knew the right people.
Nick Nurse – Making it happen
Attorney Jerry Crawford and Nick Nurse had met when the coach was coaching Grand View College more than a decade ago and they had maintained the relationship. Since then, Crawford had risen and was one of the top lawyers within the Democratic Party structure.
Nurse pitched the idea to him: Iowa needs a basketball team, and you will be the owner, and I will be the coach. A year later, in 2007, Crawford was the owner of the Iowa Energy, and Nick Nurse was his coach.
Nick Nurse – Rio Grande Valley Vipers
It was clear from the Iowa Energy game that his coach had a lot of ideas, and that was what the Rio Grande Valley Vipers were looking for. This franchise is affiliated with the Houston Rockets, and it was led by Gersson Rosas, now general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Rosas wanted the Vipers to be a testing ground that they could later implement in the NBA. And he thought Nurse would be a great coach to experiment with.
Nurse’s Vipers became one of the best teams. The Vipers dominated in the regular season, and in the Playoffs, they got into the Finals, where they had to face the Santa Cruz Warriors.
Nick Nurse – Toronto Raptors coach
It was at that moment that he received a phone call that would change his life again. Casey liked to go to other coaches’ training sessions to get ideas, and he went to practice of Great Britain in 2002 for several days, where Nurse explained what they were doing. They started a relationship, and over the next several months, they had several conversations in which each gave their vision of where the game of basketball was going.
D-League championship
In April 2013, Casey said to Nurse, “Win the championship, and we will interview you for a job in Toronto.” Sure enough, he became one of the assistant coaches for the team.
The Vipers, of course, won the D-League ring. A couple of weeks later, he was already moving to Toronto. The hiring process was not immediate, and he had to wait until just before the Summer League to sign the contract. Still, during those weeks, he and Dwane Casey strengthened their relationship, jointly watching and analyzing the games of those Playoffs.
The modern approach to offense
It didn’t take long for Nurse to become Casey’s main assistant, and things were going well for them too. In December, the Toronto Raptors traded Rudy Gay to Sacramento, which was supposed to get them into tanking mode and did just the opposite. The Raptors began to grow and compete until they became fixed in the Playoffs.
In the case of Toronto, the main complaint that existed was that its attack was out of date, and that is why it crashed at the moment of truth in the Playoffs. For 2017-18 Casey received an ultimatum because of a losing streak: either he would modernize, or there would be a change of coach.
So he had no choice, and the Raptors put a twist on their offense, reducing the use of mid jumpers and increasing the use of 3s. Raptors insiders said Nick Nurse had long wanted to convince Casey to make these changes, but Dwane was old school. The Raptors announced a new coach.
The new Toronto
The Raptors changed, and it worked. They won a total of 59 games, a franchise record. Dwane Casey was named the best coach in the NBA. But, once again, they crossed paths with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Playoffs. And they swept them away. 4-0. After that Casey was fired.
Nick Nurse – Raptors Head Coach
Casey’s dismissal was an excellent opportunity for his assistant. Nurse became one of the candidates for the position. He was especially favored by two elements: knowing the locker room, where people like Kyle Lowry valued him as a coach and has been the one who had fought to introduce changes in the Raptors system. He was Masai Ujiri’s pick, and in his rookie year as head coach in the NBA, he led the team to the ring. He even became a Canadian national team coach.
Pascal Siakam
Siakam is one of the players who benefited the most since Nurse was appointed as a team head coach. His numbers were increasing from month to month, and his new style of play was definitely unlocking his full potential.
What did Pascal Siakam say to Nick Nurse?
The Raptors had a tough last season, and multiple sources say that the main reason was the fight between Nurse and his biggest star, Pascal Siakam.
While the player was injured, he was frustrated with the way the team was playing, and after one of the losses, he exchanged some bad words with a coach, who wasn’t happy with the Siakam language. The situation got personal, lines were crossed, and teammates had to step in, according to multiple sources.
Is Nick Nurse a Hall of Fame coach?
He hasn’t been elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a head coach. He has won the NBA Coach of the Year Award. In the 2010–11 season, D-League coach Nurse received the Dennis Johnson Coach of the Year Award. This was after he helped Iowa achieve an impressive 37–13 record, which was the best in the league. Furthermore, under Nurse’s guidance, Energy went on to win the 2011 D-League championship.
What is Nick Nurse’s Salary?
Shortly after he was named 2019-20 NBA Coach of the Year, Nick Nurse signed a multi-year contract extension with the Toronto Raptors. With this new deal, Nurse will earn approximately $8 million per season.
Did Nick Nurse ever play in the NBA?
No, he was never close to playing in NBA. Nick Nurse played professionally for the Derby Rams in the British Basketball League during the 1990–91 season; following that season, however, he decided to retire from playing and pursue coaching full-time.
