Philadelphia 76ers hire Nick Nurse as next head coach
The Philadelphia 76ers were one of the several franchises across the NBA that was looking for a new head coach. Nick Nurse, former head coach for the Toronto Raptors, was one of many potential hires on the market that were looking for a new opportunity.
Now, the two sides have come together in what is a very interesting marriage in the Eastern Conference. The report of Nurse’s hire in Philly came by way of ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. He broke the news that the former champion and Coach of the Year would be headed to The City of Brotherly Love.
Nurse spent the last decade coaching north of the border with the Raptors. Half of those seasons came as an assistant and the other half, starting in 2018-2019, came as head coach. In that time as the head man, he led the Raptors to a 227-163 (0.582) record.
While things slowed down for Nurse towards the end of his tenure, he started as well as you could have. In ’18-’19, he led the Raptors to the second-most wins in franchise history with 58. That season then culminated in Toronto’s sole title with a 4-2 win over Golden State in the NBA Finals. He then won his Coach of the Year award the following season in ’19-’20.
Nurse is now headed to Philadelphia to try to get the 76ers over a hump that Brett Brown and Doc Rivers never could. That conversation starts with the reigning league MVP Joel Embiid. The superstar center just averaged a career-high and league-leading 33.1 points per game along with 10.2 rebounds last season.
Ironically enough, Nurse ran into Embiid and Philly more than once in the postseason. An all-time game-winner in Game 7 from Kawhi Leonard back in the 2019 Eastern Conference Semis sent the 76ers home in dramatic fashion as Toronto went on to hang their banner. Philadelphia then got payback in 2022 as they knocked Nurse’s team out in the first round of the playoffs.
Nurse has the experience and pedigree to potentially take Embiid and 76ers to the heights they finally want to reach. Still, with a lot left to determine in Philly this offseason, we’ll have to wait and see just how far he can get them in comparison to where they’ve been during the other years of ‘The Process’s’ era.