NBA Free Agency: Grading This Offseason's 9 Head Coach Hirings So Far

Toronto Raptors - Nick Nurse to replace Dwane Casey

Nick Nurse

His past experience: Nurse has one of the fewest NBA coaching experience among all the hires this year. He was a coach in the British Basketball League for many years and won coach of the year twice there. As a D-League coach, he won the championship twice and won coach of the year once. Finally, he served as the Raptors assistant coach from 2013 to 2018.

How will he fit: The Raptors are coming off a season where they were swept by the Cavaliers in the second round of the playoffs after a very strong season. There were some arguments against the firing of Dwane Casey, however, general manager, Masai Ujiri decided it was time to move on, and chose to hire internally. Nurse has been part of the Raptors that have been consistently making the playoffs and contending for the championship but is more inexperienced than some of the candidates that were out there.

He does have experience with this crop of guys, which should make transitioning to head coach easier for him. The Raptors are undecided whether they will continue to roll out with this group of guys or whether they will start the rebuild, but for now, Nurse should have similar success to Casey in the season. The playoffs will be what Nurse will be evaluated on.

Grade: B