Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse speaks at a news conference after the Raptors defeated the Golden State Warriors in Game 6 of the NBA Finals in Oakland, Calif., on June 13, 2019.Ben Margot/The Associated Press
If the lone championship banner that ends with 19 instead of starting with those two digits wasn’t enough of a differentiator, another characteristic separating Scotiabank Arena’s two principal tenants was laid bare Friday morning in Toronto.
While the Maple Leafs were busy slapping themselves on the back after a job well done Thursday night – simultaneously crossing every available appendage in the hopes that the fourth time is the charm for head coach Sheldon Keefe – Raptors president Masai Ujiri simply decided to stop trying to redefine insanity.
And so, four years after Nick Nurse led the Raptors out of the parochial confines of Jurassic Park and all the way to the summit of the NBA as world champions, the most successful head coach in the franchise’s 28-year history was out of work.
“We’re about winning here,” Ujiri said Friday, having watched his team go a whole three seasons without a playoff series victory. “We’ve not only said it, we’ve at least tried to do it, and that’s where we are going to continue to go.”
The team president pulled few punches when asked why now was the right time for the divorce, with Nurse reportedly having one year left on his deal. The way the season ended, with the team turning a 19-point third-quarter lead into a four-point loss to the Chicago Bulls in the play-in, left more than simply a sour taste in Ujiri’s mouth.
“I think that game summed up what has gone on in this organization,” he said. “The feel, the spirit of who we really are, it’s been very disappointing for us and we want to gain momentum back as a team.”
The manner of that home loss to the Bulls put an exclamation point on Nurse’s second playoff-less campaign since winning the first championship in team history. In five seasons at the helm, the Iowa native went 227-163 for the best winning percentage in team history, earning the 2019-20 NBA coach-of-the-year award along the way.
But in going 41-41 this season, Ujiri said the team lacked the togetherness, spirit, and team culture that defined the Raptors as a championship club. In addition, he said that some of the younger players on the roster failed to take the step forward that the front office was expecting.
And, most damningly, for someone who can have not just the best seats in the house, but gets paid to sit in them, Ujiri added that watching his team had started to become something of a chore.
“I believe that we’re going to win again in Toronto, and I feel strongly about that, but to watch us play this year was not us,” he said. “I did not enjoy watching this team play and I think that spoke loud and clear to everything that I think went on this year.”
The Raptors president said that he felt something wasn’t right with his team around the time it experienced back-to-back losses in Brooklyn and New Orleans, in late November and early December. And though Nurse ruffled some feathers with his outburst questioning his future with the team following a loss in Philadelphia at the end of last month, Ujiri said he didn’t hold it against him when weighing Nurse’s future.
“For me, the timing was not great but … I’m not going to use that against him,” he said. “He knows that. It was a mistake and we all moved on from it.”
While Nurse remains head coach of Team Canada, with a contract that runs through next year’s Paris Olympics, he may not be out of work for long. Media reports have already linked him with the vacant job with the Houston Rockets, for whom he once coached their G-League franchise.
The Raptors will now search for the 10th head coach in franchise history, with Ujiri saying that the team plans to have somebody in place by the NBA draft on June 22. ESPN is reporting that former Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka will likely get serious consideration for the role, with Udoka and Ujiri having maintained a long friendship.
One of the top areas of concern that will need addressing is selfishness as well as poor shooting, an Achilles heel that was first raised in training camp. The team’s shooting from the field was just .459 this season, fourth-worst in the NBA.
“Whoever we’re bringing in has to convince us of a good style of play that we think will fit us, will fit our culture and will fit at least some of the players, or the players that we have,” Ujiri said.
With the 2013 NBA executive of the year set to make just his second coaching appointment during his 10-year tenure – he inherited Dwane Casey as head coach when he came over from Denver in 2013 – he refuses to dwell on the past.
“Honestly, I never look back. Maybe one day on a farm in Nigeria 20 years from now, I’ll be able to look back at those things,” he said. “I don’t look at them like that. I always want to look at what we can do. How we can build this thing, how to win.
“We always want to win here. That’s what sports is about.”
A timeline of Nick Nurse’s career with the Raptors
Nick Nurse is no longer a Toronto Raptor.
The team fired the head coach Friday after a decade with the team. He led Toronto to its first NBA championship in franchise history in 2019 but struggled to a 41-41 record in 2022-23.
The Raptors finished ninth in the Eastern Conference and lost in the play-in tournament on April 12, missing the playoffs for only the second time since Nurse first joined the team as an assistant coach in 2013-14.
With his time in Toronto over, here’s a look at his career with the Raptors.
Joined the Raptors in 2013
The Raptors hired Nurse as an assistant to then-head coach Dwane Casey in July, 2013, the culmination of more than two decades spent in professional basketball.
Nurse played basketball at the University of Iowa in the late 1980s, then spent 11 seasons as a head coach in the British Basketball League. In 2007, Nurse returned stateside as a head coach in the NBA Development League, where he spent six seasons. He won coach of the year in 2010-11.
As assistant coach of the Raptors, Nurse was in charge of the team’s offence.
Promoted to head coach in 2018
When the Detroit Pistons hired Casey in June, 2018, as head coach, the Raptors promoted Nurse to the top position.
He took over a team that had finished with 59 wins in 2017-18, the most in franchise history, but tumbled out of the playoffs when it was swept in the Eastern Conference semi-final by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Won the 2019 championship
Nurse’s first season in Toronto couldn’t have gone better. With new star Kawhi Leonard bolstering a roster that already featured Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam and Serge Ibaka, the Raptors finished second in the Eastern Conference and won the second-most games in franchise history.
They flew through the playoffs, beating the Orlando Magic in five games and then the Philadelphia 76ers, a series best remembered for Leonard’s buzzer-beating winning shot in Game 7. Toronto beat the Milwaukee Bucks in six games for its first trip to the NBA Finals.
Against the juggernaut Golden State Warriors, who had won three of the previous four titles, the Raptors won their first championship in franchise history.
Signed a multiyear extension in 2020
Despite losing to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semi-final in 2020, Nurse was chosen NBA coach of the year and signed a multiyear extension with the Raptors.
Toronto struggled in 2020-21, winning only 27 games in a shortened season – the team’s worst record in nine seasons. But Nurse led a successful rebound in 2021-22, when the Raptors won 48 games and lost in the first round of the playoffs to the 76ers.
Fired Friday
Ultimately, after a mediocre campaign that ended with a 109-105 loss to the Chicago Bulls in the play-in game on April 12, the Raptors decided to part ways with Nurse.
“This is an opportunity for us to reset, to refocus, to put into place the personnel and the players who will help us reach our goal of winning our next championship,” team president Masai Ujiri said in a release.
According to reports, Toronto’s head coach search includes former Boston head coach Ime Udoka. Udoka led the Celtics to the Finals in 2021-22 but was suspended this past season for an inappropriate relationship with a team staffer.
Nurse is reportedly in the running for the Houston Rockets’ open head-coach position, ESPN says.
- Mark Colley and Prapti Bamaniya
With reports from The Canadian Press.
Paul Attfield