RAPTORS NAME COACH
TEAM APPOINTS ASSISTANT NICK NURSE HEAD COACH
Nurse has gone from coaching college to D League to the NBA —
A dozen years ago, Nick Nurse walked into Jerry Crawford’s law office and pitched his longtime friend an idea.
“He said ‘Have you heard about this D League?’” Crawford recalled of that momentous meeting. “I said ‘Yes.’ He said ‘I think we should do it here in Des Moines.’ and I said ‘I think you’re right.’”
The 50-year-old Nurse has agreed to become the next coach of the Toronto Raptors, the culmination of a circuitous coaching journey that enjoyed a pivotal moment in Des Moines. Crawford founded the Iowa Energy (now the Iowa Wolves) in 2007. He, of course, named Nurse his first head coach.
“When people say that folks paid their dues to become head coaches in the NBA, rarely do they pay their dues to the extent that they had to start a team to be able to coach in order to get started on that pathway,” Crawford said. “That’s what Nick did.”
Nurse coached the Energy until 2011, when they won the D League (now G League) title, and the Iowan was named coach of the year.
Crawford first met Nurse when he was the head coach at Grand View College at just 23. The two kept in touch for almost a decade while Nurse coached in Britain before they collaborated on the Energy franchise. The lawyer was thrilled for his friend Tuesday.
“A lot of us who care about Nick have been on pins and needles for awhile, hoping that today would come,” Crawford said.
Nurse’s hiring comes a month after the Raptors fired Dwane Casey after Toronto was swept out of the second round of this year’s playoffs by Cleveland. Raptors president Masai Ujiri had reportedly narrowed his search down to Nurse and San Antonio assistant coach Ettore Messina. Mike Budenholzer, former head coach of the Atlanta Hawks, was also seen as an early front-runner before being hired by Milwaukee.
Nurse’s promotion suggests some continuity in style coming off a franchise-best 59-win season and the team’s first No. 1 seed. Nurse has been credited with the Raptors’ major offensive makeover that saw them jump to third in the league offensively overall, and from 22nd to third in three-pointers.
Raptors fans know little about the team’s new head coach beyond the short interviews Nurse did during television broadcasts.
But basketball has been Nurse’s constant. As a 20-something player/coach for the Derby Storm of the British Basketball League, he once gave orders to players more than a decade his senior.
Now he will be directing some of the finest players on the planet in Toronto.
Nurse played for the University of Northern Iowa, and then was an assistant coach at UNI where his brother Steve is still the equipment manager. After his stint at Grand View, where he was the youngest college basketball coach in the U.S., he headed overseas where he coached six teams in the British League, and was an assistant on Great Britain’s squad at the 2012 London Olympics.