The Toronto Raptors are officially out of the Nick Nurse business.
After spending ten years with the organization and winning an NBA Championship in 2019, Nurse was let go by the Raptors on Friday morning following a tumultuous 2022-23 season that saw the Raptors miss out on the playoffs for the first time since 2013, Tampa Bay season not included.
In Masai Ujiri’s end-of-season press conference on Friday afternoon, the President and Vice Chairman repeatedly cited a need to reset the culture and bring back the “spirit,” “energy,” and “togetherness” that the Raptors played with when they were at their best.
“We’ve got to build spirit back here, the culture, those things that bring us together to move like we’ve always done here… it’s very vital for us to have incredible energy that lifts people and gets us to work together,” Ujiri said.
In other words, the issues with the Raptors and Nurse’s coaching were not so much Xs and Os related as they had to do with the interpersonal dynamics of coaching a young team in the modern NBA. It feels as though Nurse wore out his welcome, and the Raptors need a new head coach who will not only connect with the players but also get the most out of them individually and, more importantly, as a team.
“Whoever we are interviewing or whoever we are bringing in has to convince us of a good style of play that we think will fit us, will fit our culture, or at least some of the players we have,” Ujiri said about the coaching search.
He added that the No. 1 priority he will be looking for in a new head coach is: “Character. Quality of a person. Energy. What kind of energy are we going to get? Because we need that.”
Here are six head coaching candidates that could sit atop the Raptors bench at the start of the 2023-24 season:
Ime Udoka
When ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Raptors were letting go of Nurse on Friday, he immediately followed it up by saying that “former [Boston] Celtics coach Ime Udoka is expected to be a serious candidate to replace Nurse.”
Given Wojnarowski’s credibility, the Toronto Star’s Doug Smith’s report from March in which rumours were circulating that Udoka “is the front-runner to replace [Nurse] in Toronto if they go outside the current staff,” and that he and Ujiri have a previous relationship from their time working together with Basketball Without Borders, Udoka should absolutely be considered the favourite to land the job.
From a personal standpoint, Udoka was suspended for one year by the Celtics for violations of team policies after having an “improper consensual relationship with a female member of the team staff” that included Udoka making “unwanted comments” towards the woman. In February, the Celtics removed Joe Mazzulla’s interim tag and made him Udoka’s official replacement as head coach. From a coaching standpoint, Udoka’s greatest and most relevant achievement in Boston — aside from leading them to the NBA Finals in his only year there in 2021-22 — was his ability to connect with star players Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, who called Udoka probably “my most favourite coach I’ve ever had.”
But given the off-court baggage, and that he was interviewed and passed over by Ujiri once before in 2018, there is no guarantee that Udoka will be the next coach of the Raptors.
Earl Watson
Speaking of someone with a healthy relationship with star players, Watson came to Toronto as an assistant coach in 2021 after leading the Phoenix Suns for parts of three seasons and his charismatic personality immediately engrossed himself closely with core players like Fred VanVleet, OG Anunoby, and Pascal Siakam.
Plus, Watson is known for his ability to develop young talent, with Devin Booker crediting him for helping him become the player he is today. Given that Ujiri mentioned that the Raptors failed to develop their young players this season and that player development is a clear priority, Watson could be an option despite his 33-85 head coaching record.
However, the Toronto Star’s Doug Smith also tweeted that the “Raptors have been quietly interviewing possible assistant coaches this week, expecting a mass exodus from the staff,” with current associate head coach Adrian Griffin currently interviewing for the head coaching job in Detroit. So, it’s possible that Watson could be up for a promotion to the associate head coaching job in Toronto if he doesn’t land the head coaching gig or move elsewhere.
Jerry Stackhouse
Stack is back? It certainly seems possible.
The current head coach of the Vanderbilt Commodores has ties to the Raptors, having led the Raptors 905 to a D League Championship in 2017 when VanVleet and Siakam were key members of the 905.
In addition to being a former NBA star player, Stackhouse was also an assistant coach for the Raptors and Memphis Grizzlies before moving onto college ball. He has helped turn around a Commodores program that went 11-21 in his first year there in 2019-20 and 22-15 this past season, when he won the Tennessee Sports Writers Association Coach of the Year.
If the Raptors want someone with an existing relationship with their star players who also has enough NBA credibility to command a locker room, there might be no one better suited to set things in order than Stackhouse. However, his lack of experience leading an NBA team is the big question mark.
Sergio Scariolo
Scariolo was assistant coach with the Raptors during their title run from 2018-2021 and is considered one of the best national team coaches of all time. The 62-year-old Italian has been the head coach of the Spanish national team since 2009 (with a brief break between 2012-15), leading them to four EuroBasket championships (including one last summer with ex-Raptor Juancho Hernangomez) and a World Cup.
Scariolo currently also serves as the head coach of Virtus Bologna, a team playing in Italy’s top league, who won the league and its first EuroCup in his first season at the helm.
In fact, winning seems to follow Scariolo everywhere he goes, and winning is always at the top of Ujiri’s list of priorities. But would someone with relatively little NBA experience be a safe enough choice to lead the young Raptors through one of the most volatile eras in NBA history?
Jama Mahlalela
While the most common Golden State Warriors assistant coach you will see associated with the Raptors is former Brooklyn Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson, the dark horse is Mahlalela, who grew up in Toronto before joining the Raptors organization as an assistant coach in 2013.
Mahlalela spent six seasons as a Raptors assistant coach known for player development and two as the head coach of the Raptors 905, where he finished with a 51-42 record. Mahlalela also has a close relationship with Ujiri as a coach for his non-profit Giants of Africa.
But Mahlalela left Toronto for the Warriors after being promised a front-of-bench position in 2021, and he has been credited as a major key to their success ever since as the director of their player development program. Sure, Mahlalela has less head coaching experience than anyone on this list, but if the Raptors really value character, energy, and player development at the top of their list, Mahlalela might be the man for the job.
Chris Quinn
If it’s NBA experience that the Raptors are after, Quinn comes to the interview pool with a high degree of pedigree after spending the last nine years as an assistant on Erik Spoelstra’s staff in Miami — easily one of the best coaching staffs in the league.
Quinn was an NBA role player for six seasons across four teams and has basically been on Spoelstra’s staff ever since, reportedly embodying a lot of the same temperament and organizational skills as Spoelstra, the second-longest tenured head coach in the league. Quinn has interviewed for several head coaching vacancies in recent years and it’s only a matter of time before an NBA team gives him a chance to see if he can replicate some of the success he has had with the Heat.
