Nick Nurse

Player information
Nick Nurse
at the Toronto Raptors Championship Parade. 2019
birthday	24th July 1967 (age 53)
place of birth	Carroll , Iowa , United States
size	185 cm
position	Point guard
college	Northern Iowa
Clubs as coaches
1990–1991 Derby Rams ( SpT ) 1991–1993 Grand View Vikings ( NAIA ) 1993–1995 South Dakota Coyotes ( NCAA ; AC ) 1995–1997 Birmingham Bullets 1998 Sunair Oostende 1998–2000 Manchester Giants 2000–2001 London Towers 2001–2006 Brighton Bears 2007–2011 Iowa Energy 2007–2012 British National Basketball Team (AC) 2011–2013 Rio Grande Valley Vipers 2013–2018 Toronto Raptors (AC) Since 2018 Toronto Raptors (HC) United Kingdom United States United States United Kingdom 00000Belgium United Kingdom United Kingdom United Kingdom United States United Kingdom United States Canada 0Canada

Nick Nurse (born July 24, 1967 in Carroll , Iowa ) is an American basketball coach . He has been the head coach of the Toronto Raptors since the beginning of the 2018/19 NBA season, previously he had been a member of the coaching staff in Toronto since 2013.

Nurse worked particularly successfully in the British Basketball League , in which he won two championships, and as a coach in the NBA Development League , where he also won two championships, the last one in 2013 with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. Nurse also was assistant coach of Chris Finch in the British national team , with whom he also at the 2012 Olympic Games took part in London.

Career

Nurse studied at the University of Northern Iowa , for whose college team Panthers he was active in basketball from 1985 to 1989 in the then Mid-Continent Conference of the NCAA . With this university team, he was in the all-time best list for the three-point hit rate (46.8 percent; 170 hits in 363 attempts) when he left the team in 1989. After the end of his four years as a player, he stayed with the team for another year in the expanded coaching and supervisory staff in order to achieve his degree before he became player- coach for the Rams from Derby in the British Basketball League (BBL ) acted. After a year he returned to Iowa and was coach of the Vikings of Grand View University in Des Moines , whose sports teams participate in the NAIA's game operations . After two years he was then assistant coach with the college team Coyotes of the University of South Dakota in the more important college league NCAA. He also carried out this activity for two years.

In 1995 Nurse went back to England and was coach of the Bullets from Birmingham , with whom he won the BBL championship in 1996 with the help of " Most Valuable Player " (MVP) Tony Dorsey . After you could not defend the championship in the following year, Nurse was in the 1997/98 season coach at the Belgian cup winner Sunair from Ostend . Although it was possible to defend the cup victory, but not "knock off the throne" master Spirou BC Charleroi . Then Nurse went back to the British island and trained the Giants from Manchester in the BBL . The Giants won the league cup "uni-ball trophy" in 1999 with Tony Dorsey as the top scorer in the final and were fourth in the play-offs for the championship as the runner-up in the BBL main round after they beat the "small final" for third place First place Sheffield Sharks lost by coach Chris Finch. In the following season they lost the final of the League Cup against the London Towers, but won the championship final against Nurse 'former club Birmingham Bullets. Tony Dorsey was again named BBL MVP and Nurse, succeeding Finch, was named BBL Trainer of the Year.

In the following season 2000/01 Nurse then trained the former league cup winners London Towers, who competed in the newly created ULEB Euroleague . In the ULEB Euroleague 2000/01 premiere season , however, they only won one game in ten preliminary round matches against the German representative Opel Skyliners , which they could leave behind because of the better direct comparison in the group. In the BBL they were eliminated in the semifinals against the eventual champions Leicester Riders . The same happened to Nurse as coach of the Bears from Brighton in the following season 2001/02, when he lost the semifinals to the eventual champions Chester Jets . A year later they reached the final, which was lost to the Scottish Rocks . In the following season 2003/04 they went first in the play-offs, lost the final game of the League Cup BBL Trophy with two points against the Chester Jets and the play-off semi-finals with one point against the same opponent. Nurse was again named Coach of the Year for the second time as the successor to Chris Finch. In the following two seasons, the Bears were eliminated in the first round of the play-offs. In 2005, for the second time after 2003, they won the BBL Cup, which is independent of the League Cup.

After the 2012 Olympic Games were awarded in the British capital, London , a British national basketball team was formed for the second time from the previously separate national teams of England , Scotland and Wales (excluding Northern Ireland ). The team was established in 2006 and Chris Finch was appointed national coach, who then brought his long-time rival and friend Nick Nurse into the coaching staff as an assistant. After Nurse had repeatedly worked in the NBA Summer League in the coaching staff of NBA clubs such as the Milwaukee Bucks , Phoenix Suns and Chicago Bulls as well as in the United States Basketball League for the Oklahoma Storm in the previous years during the European summer break , he became also in 2007 in his native US state coach of the newly founded " franchise " Iowa Energy in the NBA Development League (D-League). With the Energy he won the "Central Division" in 2009 and the "Eastern Conference" in the following two years in 2010 and 2011. At the beginning of the 2010/11 season Nurse had already accepted as assistant coach of the Cyclones at Iowa State University , but after the previous head coach was dismissed, the contract was canceled after a short time and Nurse returned to the coaching post of Iowa Energy. After being eliminated in the play-offs before the final series in the previous seasons, they won the 2011 D-League championship in the final series against the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, who were trained by Nurse's friend Chris Finch. Nurse was named Coach of the Year of the D-League with the "Dennis Johnson Coach of the Year Award" 2011, again as Chris Finch's successor. Finch was then appointed as assistant coach to Kevin McHale in the coaching staff of the NBA club Houston Rockets and Nurse was his successor as head coach of the Vipers. After a season with an almost even balance, they won the Central Division in 2013 and without defeat in the play-offs in a team with, among others, the German national player Tim Ohlbrecht , the championship of the D-League. Previously, Nurse had also participated with the British national team in the 2012 Olympic basketball tournament under national coach Chris Finch , where the British selection achieved only one win against China in five preliminary rounds and was eliminated early, as in the European Championship finals in 2009 and 2011 .

After the championship with the Vipers, Nurse also rose to the coaching staff of an NBA club in 2013 like Finch two years earlier. However, Nurse went to Toronto , Canada, where he became Dwane Casey's assistant with the Raptors. As of June 2018, Nurse was promoted to head coach after Toronto split from Casey. Raptors President Masai Ujiri described Nurse on the occasion of the promotion, among other things, as an "inventive trainer with a great understanding of basketball". In his first year as head coach in the NBA, Nurse Toronto led him to win the championship. This was the first in team history and the first title win by a Canadian representative in the NBA.