Toronto News: Nick Nurse on His Way to the Top of NBA

In just two seasons on the job, Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse has won an NBA title and earned the right to coach in the all-star game on Feb. 16.

Nick Nurse’s Experience

Nurse is in his second season as the Raptors’ head coach after spending five seasons as an assistant coach with Toronto.  As a rookie NBA head coach last season, he led Toronto to a 58-24 record and its first NBA championship.

Before joining the Raptors, Nurse spent six seasons as a head coach in the NBA G League.  Nurse guided the Rio Grande Valley Vipers and the Iowa Energy to one NBA G League title each. This makes him the only head coach to win championships in both the NBA and the NBA G League.

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Nick Nurse as Head Coach

Nurse is the second head coach in franchise history to earn the honour with Dwane Casey and his staff coaching Team LeBron in the 2018 NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles. Nurse has earned the NBA’s Coach of the Month award twice (Oct. /Nov. 2018 and Oct./Nov. 2019) and has led the Raptors to a 93-38 (.710) record in two seasons as head coach.

His winning rate as head coach is only second to Steve Kerr who leads the league with .724 %. Last season, five of team’s top eight scorers missed more than 20% of the games while this year 4 of them have done the same. Nurse’s ability to maintain his winning record in such conditions further shows his ability to run the team. He has a chance to overtake Steve Kerr’s record as head coach if he continues in the same way.

Nick Nurse currently is one of the top coaches in contention to win Coach of the Year. Other coaches in contention are Erik Spoelstra, Mike Budenhozer and Frank Vogel. Bud’s team Bucks is on pace on a historic 70 win season. Spoelstra has lead lacklustre Heat’s team to become one of the major contenders in the east while Vogel has lead Laker’s team to the top of the competitive west. The competition is only getting more heated as the end of the season approaches.