Nick Nurse: Ahead of the Class (Sportsnet Article) - good insight

[WuTang_OG]

https://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/nba/nick-nurse-toronto-raptors-coach-path/

the guy on the other end of the phone had a British accent, but as Nurse tells the story he’s respectful enough not to try one on himself. It was 1990, and the call was from an executive with the BBL’s Derby Storm. “Hey, I’m reading your letter here,” Nurse remembers the Brit saying, “and it says ‘Dear Mr. Whatever, I am interested in playing and/or coaching overseas.’ How ’bout both?”

Nurse had just finished his first season as Miller’s assistant, one that had seen Northern Iowa upset No. 3–seed Missouri in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Despite that success, he was set on playing again and had worked himself back into competitive shape for a Brazilian pro team only to have the deal fall through. He’d garnered some other interest, including from a Japanese company looking for an accountant who also played basketball, but if Mr. Whatever was saying what it seemed like he was saying, Derby’s offer was undeniably appealing.

“What do you mean?” Nurse asked.

“Well, we want you to come be our head coach and play.”

Nurse agreed on the spot and was told to get on a plane to England that weekend. “And then you hang up the phone and you’re like, ‘Holy ****, I gotta do this job now!’” he says.

Nurse would ultimately coach five clubs across 11 seasons in the BBL — only leaving for brief stretches with Grand View College, the University of South Dakota and a pro team based in Ostend, Belgium — and he thrived in the do-it-your-own-damn-self environment Finch describes. “I think we went 45-7 on the season,” says Phil Handy, a current Raptors assistant who played for Nurse on the ’99–00 Manchester Giants. “We won a championship there.”

Nurse was named Coach of the Year that season, and would earn the award again with the Brighton Bears in ’03–04, but he’d already started to work towards a return to North America. “I kept getting what I thought were steps up, or experiences up, and higher levels,” Nurse says of his life in England. “But there was a time there when I was thinking, ‘OK, how am I gonna get back? Because no matter how much I’m winning here, it seems like nobody’s really noticing.’”

He started making off-season trips to the Long Beach Summer Pro League, a precursor to the Vegas Summer League, showing up an hour before games tipped off and trying to make himself useful, building relationships with stats guys and trainers and assistants. He hit all the big events in Europe as well, travelling for the EuroLeague Final Four and coaching a team at a free-agent summer league in Treviso, Italy. “Nick, he coached wherever he had to coach,” Handy says. “He just laid it on the line, and that naturally takes you from one step to the next.”

“He’s very locked-in in the moment, but he also knows where he wants to be big picture,” says Nurse’s nephew, David, a skills and life coach who works with a number of NBA players. “He knew big picture he was going to be an NBA head coach. He’d tell people that.

“Even if people wouldn’t believe in him, he never lost any belief in himself.”

this time Nurse was expecting the call. It was June 2018 and he was in his condo in Toronto’s Liberty Village. Team president Masai Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster had him on speakerphone and, as Nurse remembers it, they didn’t waste any breath getting to the point: “They said, ‘Hey, we’re talking to the new head coach of the Raptors,’” he recalls. “I called my wife and told her, and I didn’t tell anybody else. I got to the office 15 minutes later — probably rode my bike over — and I had 259 text messages.”

The search for outgoing coach Dwane Casey’s replacement had taken the better part of a month and reportedly involved at least seven serious candidates. Nurse’s name was in the mix right from the beginning, but both publicly and privately he’s said he wasn’t bothered by the wait; he had the patience of a man who knew his time was gonna come sooner or later. “I don’t really know how to tell you this, right, but in the last five years, I had 1,000 people, at least, tell me I was going to be a head coach in this league,” he says, pausing for a beat before delivering the punchline. “And then those same thousand people were surprised when I got the job.”

It took Nurse 11 years to go from a near-completely unknown rookie head coach in the NBA D-League to a relatively unknown rookie head coach in the NBA proper, and judging by the amount he accomplished in that time, he didn’t take a whole lot of days off. In four seasons with the Iowa Energy (2007–11) and another two with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, he racked up the second-most regular-season wins in league history (183) and the most playoff victories (15), took home the Dennis Johnson Coach of the Year Award in 2011, and became the first and only person to lead two different teams to the D-League title. When all of that success earned him his first NBA job with the Raptors in 2013, he lived in the film room and on the practice courts for years and eventually led an overhaul of the team’s attack that saw Toronto rank second in the NBA last season by offensive rating, behind only the Houston Rockets.

The changes Nurse wanted to make to the Raptors’ offence ahead of the 2017–18 season didn’t come flying in out of left field with the imaginary free throws, but he was still asking established pros to alter the way they played. “He came at it from a logical standpoint,” says Fred VanVleet, a guard in his third season with the team. “He brought the evidence and the numbers, and as a player you gotta respect that.

“And as a young player, you don’t have a choice,” VanVleet adds laughing.

[ratul]

Interesting article. Thanks for posting

[stanch sabonis]

That phone call was epic. straight up changed his life on the spot

[T-d0t]

International man of mystery

[Concerned_Fan]

I don't get why struggling NCAA programs don't just pluck from the G-League more. Poach a progressive G-League coach or low assistant from the NBA ranks, offer a large salary and a longer contract. There's got to be a lot of Nick Nurse's or Nevada Smith's sitting on G-League benches or as assistants/coordinators on NBA teams.

There are so many NCAA teams still walking the ball up and pounding the ball like it's 1993 and jacking up fallaway jumpshots. Or running terribly overcomplicated motion offenses that lead to turnovers and forced shots.

You can't tell me some of these struggling programs wouldn't do better with a coach that utilized advanced metrics into the offense, and loaded up on guards and undersized forwards bigger NCAA programs overlooked. D.III and JUCO programs are full of 5'9-6'3 gunner combo guards, there have got to be some in China, Latin America and Europe. How many NCAA shooting guards and small forwards can consistently isolate and post-up an undersized guard anyways to do enough damage? We see legit NBA SGs fail to post Fred Van Vleet when Raptors run their 2 PG combo.

[nabbs]

The changes Nurse wanted to make to the Raptors’ offence ahead of the 2017–18 season didn’t come flying in out of left field with the imaginary free throws, but he was still asking established pros to alter the way they played. “He came at it from a logical standpoint,” says Fred VanVleet, a guard in his third season with the team. “He brought the evidence and the numbers, and as a player you gotta respect that.

“And as a young player, you don’t have a choice,” VanVleet adds laughing.

Wonder if Fred was asked to change his style of play and if so, could this be the reason for his regression in play out of the gate?

[jeffyjaixx]

Sounds like Nurse has lots of experience and really good with the players as well, earning their respect and being honest. Good traits to have.

[StopitLeo]

Can Evan Rosser please write more before he gets scooped up by The Athletic?

That was a good read. I didn't realize Handy had played for Nurse.

[Psubs]

The changes Nurse wanted to make to the Raptors’ offence ahead of the 2017–18 season didn’t come flying in out of left field with the imaginary free throws, but he was still asking established pros to alter the way they played. “He came at it from a logical standpoint,” says Fred VanVleet, a guard in his third season with the team. “He brought the evidence and the numbers, and as a player you gotta respect that.

“And as a young player, you don’t have a choice,” VanVleet adds laughing.

Wonder if Fred was asked to change his style of play and if so, could this be the reason for his regression in play out of the gate?

He got an increase in minutes and more ball-handling duty without Delon Wright helping.

Though this was asked prior to 2017-2018.

[hankscorpioLA]

I don't get why struggling NCAA programs don't just pluck from the G-League more. Poach a progressive G-League coach or low assistant from the NBA ranks, offer a large salary and a longer contract. There's got to be a lot of Nick Nurse's or Nevada Smith's sitting on G-League benches or as assistants/coordinators on NBA teams.

There are so many NCAA teams still walking the ball up and pounding the ball like it's 1993 and jacking up fallaway jumpshots. Or running terribly overcomplicated motion offenses that lead to turnovers and forced shots.

You can't tell me some of these struggling programs wouldn't do better with a coach that utilized advanced metrics into the offense, and loaded up on guards and undersized forwards bigger NCAA programs overlooked. D.III and JUCO programs are full of 5'9-6'3 gunner combo guards, there have got to be some in China, Latin America and Europe. How many NCAA shooting guards and small forwards can consistently isolate and post-up an undersized guard anyways to do enough damage? We see legit NBA SGs fail to post Fred Van Vleet when Raptors run their 2 PG combo.

It's a skill problem. Most NCAA teams do not have the kinds of shooters and playmakers you need to run that kind of offense. And you often only have players for a year so you can't teach complex schemes.

[soloxylo]

That phone call was epic. straight up changed his life on the spot

I was about to say, straight up boss move. Facilitated an expansion team in his home state so he could coach it. Creating your own opportunity at it's finest.

[macNcheese3]

Really like what I see from Nurse. The game just looks different.

[Concerned_Fan]

I don't get why struggling NCAA programs don't just pluck from the G-League more. Poach a progressive G-League coach or low assistant from the NBA ranks, offer a large salary and a longer contract. There's got to be a lot of Nick Nurse's or Nevada Smith's sitting on G-League benches or as assistants/coordinators on NBA teams.

There are so many NCAA teams still walking the ball up and pounding the ball like it's 1993 and jacking up fallaway jumpshots. Or running terribly overcomplicated motion offenses that lead to turnovers and forced shots.

You can't tell me some of these struggling programs wouldn't do better with a coach that utilized advanced metrics into the offense, and loaded up on guards and undersized forwards bigger NCAA programs overlooked. D.III and JUCO programs are full of 5'9-6'3 gunner combo guards, there have got to be some in China, Latin America and Europe. How many NCAA shooting guards and small forwards can consistently isolate and post-up an undersized guard anyways to do enough damage? We see legit NBA SGs fail to post Fred Van Vleet when Raptors run their 2 PG combo.

It's a skill problem. Most NCAA teams do not have the kinds of shooters and playmakers you need to run that kind of offense. And you often only have players for a year so you can't teach complex schemes.

If it's a skill problem, then you want to play that style more. If you have less 5 star recruits, I get the "fewer possessions" thing, because more possessions means more chances for the other teams to score (the Princeton offense philosophy). But you can also go the other way and say shooting more 3's and shooting in volume increases risk variance (Daryl Morey's philosophy).

Also, motion offenses are complex - many big NCAA programs run extremely complicated schemes. It's run & gun systems that are simple. The beauty in D'Antoni's offense is its simplicity.

The big NCAA programs get all the 5 star recruits. All the 6'5 athletic wings, anyone above 6'7 that can play basketball.

The small NCAA programs are left with guards that weren't recruited to these schools. And maybe 1 guy over 6'7 that can only rebound and can't get up the floor that well. But there's a whole dearth of skilled guards under 6'3 that big DI programs pass on, because they aren't as naturally athletic or look like Trae Young. They have high basketball IQs and good shots though (Steve Nash went to a small DI program).

You're telling me a smaller NCAA program that trots out Jeremy Lin and Fred Van Vleet in the backcourt at SG/PG, that plays a run & gun style of play wouldn't have above-average success? They'd both have huge numbers.

Some of these schools get walk-ons and 2nd, 3rd year transfers from JUCO too. So they have to integrate a lot of new players. No time to get them use to a complex Bobby Knight motion offense or a Coach K 5 out.

[Duckrice]

I had no idea Nurse had coached in England for so long - I have a couple of friends who played in the BBL, I should ask them if they know him!