Chalk talks spawned two NBA coaches
Relationship between Nurse, Pacers’ Bjorkgren goes back to mid-1990s
The house was a mess and the days were long, but the minds were whirring like machines and from such odd beginnings came the makings of two NBA coaching careers.
It was the summer of 2007 and a couple of long-time pals were doing some personal professional development, deconstructing their first season together with the Iowa Energy of what was then known as the D League.
Nate Bjorkgren would stop by Nick Nurse’s house shortly after dawn and the brainstorming would commence.
“Those were 12-hour days … 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. nearly every day for an entire summer,” Bjorkgren said. “It was white boards all around his basement, everything written up there that you can think of: offence, defence, special teams, player development, personnel, how we wanted to coach. And a lot of those theories that we created then we use today.”
Things are different now, very evolved from those long days of honing the craft as young coaches on the rise.
Today, Nurse and Bjorkgren have two of only 30 jobs like theirs on Earth: the former now head coach of the Raptors, the latter head coach of the Indiana Pacers. Sunday marked the first time in NBA history that a couple of buddies from Iowa had coached against each other in the toughest, best league in the world. Nurse’s Raptors took that one, with Bjorkgren’s Pacers winning Monday’s rematch.
Nurse recalled the first offseason as primarily work on specific game situations that would follow him and Bjorkgren throughout their careers.
“One of the things when we get done the first year (was): ‘Man, we were in a lot of tight ball games.’ So it was one of the things that we kind of earmarked, three or four things we were going to try to do really well the next year as a coaching staff, and that was one of them … it took us a lot of time to figure it all out,” Nurse said.
Their relationship — Nurse from Carroll and Bjorkgren from Storm Lake, both something less than Iowa megalopolises
— goes back to the mid-1990s.
They worked together and coached against each other in the D League, and Bjorkgren spent two seasons at Nurse’s side with the Raptors before getting the Indiana job last fall.
The 45-year-old Bjorkgren has had an immediate impact on the Pacers, 9-7 through Sunday. He’s overcome the effects of the James Harden trade — losing starting guard Victor Oladipo to Houston, while new arrival Caris LeVert has been unavailable following a physical — and figured out the conundrum of a frontcourt comprised of the similar Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner. He’s done it in what is apparently Bjorkgren style: by treating everyone fairly.
“From day one when he showed up to Toronto … he treated me as if I was Kawhi Leonard, and he kept that from day one all the way to the end, and our relationship grew over time,” Raptors guard Fred Van Vleet said. “Nate was the guy who I talked to every day during practice, before practice, after practice, during the games, after the game, and we were able to build an incredible relationship. But that’s all just a testament to the person he is.”
Those marathon chalk talks more than a decade ago may have formed some of Bjorkgren’s on-court philosophies, and also helped Nurse get better and more accomplished at his craft. But they also spawned the way they treat their players, how they accept the tremendous leadership roles they have.
Those elements are as important as any X’s or O’s stuff.
“This job entails a lot of responsibility,” Bjorkgren said. “It’s managing players, it’s managing personalities, managing on the court and off the court. Helping the players in any way that I can, and always being there for them. That’s not a challenging part (but it’s a) part that I want to do very well for this team.”