Nurse answers Team Canada’s call ahead of World Cup
Coach led the Raptors to a title, now he’s charged with leading national men’s squad
The process may have left a little to be desired but as Basketball Canada GM Rowan Barrett suggested, no one is disputing the result.
A somewhat convoluted search for the next head coach of Canada’s senior men’s national team program ended with Nick Nurse, the head coach of the NBA champion Toronto Raptors.
Who argues with that?
The news leaked a few weeks ago but with Nurse and the Raptors in the midst of a championship run, the team and Basketball Canada did its best to limit the distraction.
Basketball Canada waited until yesterday to unveil their new head coach through the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Nurse — in the familiar confines of the OVO Centre, the Raptors’ practice facility — was vague about how the whole thing came about. But he left no uncertainty about how thrilled he is to get back to the world of international basketball — even if it’s only an off-season job.
Nurse was an assistant for Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics in London and counts that as one of the true great learning experiences of his extensive coaching career. He’s hoping his head coaching role with Canada will be no less valuable.
“I see a tremendous opportunity for growth for myself,” Nurse said Monday. “That’s always really, really important to me. And two great competitions (2019 World Cup in Beijing, 2020 Olympics — assuming Canada qualifies — in Tokyo) covering this summer and next. It’s just an opportunity that doesn’t come around in anybody’s life, a coach’s life, whatever, very often. Again, I’m honoured to be able to do it and excited to do it.”
The news extends an already incredibly long and arduous 2019 for Nurse, who helped bring Canada its first NBA championship.
Before taking the Team Canada job, Nurse had to ask himself a few questions.
“Would it fit in time-wise without having any serious ramifications to the Raptors? Did I want to give up my summer vacations to do it? Obviously, my wife and family had to support the thing, that was big as well. I was probably at about 65 per cent and my wife said, ‘100 per cent you take that job,’ so here I am.”
And don’t worry about Nurse not knowing either the Canadian talent or the FIBA game. He’s well versed in both.
“I know a lot, if not all of ’em from a standpoint of either coaching against them, coaching with ’em — we’ve had a lot of guys at Summer League, we’ve had guys on our G-league team, guys on our team as well — so there’s not a name up there I don’t know or haven’t seen play,” Nurse said of the Canadian talent pool.
Nurse will have a three-man assistant staff to aid him with Gord Herbert, a one-time Raptors assistant and longtime European coach already named to the staff. The rest of the group will be filled out soon.
“We wanted the best person to lead us to where we need to go,” Barrett said. “The amount of people who reached out from around the globe — NBA coaches, coaches from the Euroleague, many wanted in on this opportunity. They were as excited for this opportunity as many of us are here in Canada.”
As for the players that will make up the team, the level of optimism for buy-in is greater than ever for a country that hasn’t always sent its best.
Among the NBA talent Barrett and Nurse will be drawing from is a list that includes NBA players Cory Joseph, Tristan Thompson, Dwight Powell, Kelly Olynyk, Jamal Murray, Andrew Wiggins, Dillon Brooks, Shaigilgeous Alexander and newest New York Knicks arrival R.J. Barrett.
The World Cup begins Aug. 31 and goes through Sept 15. Canada has drawn into a tough group that includes Lithuania, Australia and Senegal.
The Canadian team will have an extensive run up to the tournament through most of August including a training camp in Toronto, and games against Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.