Raptors have fired Nurse

Wow, that's big news.

It's a bit of a dropoff for him and his "legacy" here in Toronto. It's too bad.

Casey might be thrilled though, in a way.

Nurse may and likely will succeed elsewhere as an HC but this was needed for a clean reset for the Raptors. I know names like Udoka, Stackhouse and others are the common replacement picks here.

Was thinking of Scott Brooks if we are indeed resetting and focusing on player development. Of course, I can see us replacing him in 3-4 years when we want to be a championship contender and get a much better Xs and Os coach. But for the next 2-3 years, it's all about developing talent and he has done it a few times pretty well.

It was a hell of a run. But clearly it was time to move on. No bitterness no regrets. And so it goes…

It really was strange to see so many young guys forgotten this year.

An over emphasis on the starters minutes did not help. Way too many 38+ mins games from guys, especially when they were playing like crap.

I was going to complain about Precious regressing, but checking out his stat line, and I guess he didn't really. If anything, his advanced stats look really similar to his rookie year. His 3-pt percentage was down a lot, but his FT% was way up. Usage rate, rebounding rate, all about the same.

I guess there seemed like regression because Precious finished the 2022 season fairly strong. And his minutes/game declined a bit this year.

Flynn, nearly the same as last year. Banton's stats were up, although his minutes were down.

Anyhow, looks like it was a frustrating year for all the bench guys.

Its sniping for sure, but the part about not developing the young players rings true and I could see that as the basis for Ujiri deciding that another type of coach needs to be in place moving forward. You cant draft/add young guys to the roster and then bury them year after year. Maybe you can do that in LA but not Toronto. Keeping the development pipeline productive is paramount for this franchise to succeed.

Apparently, Udoka is headed to Houston. Feels like the Bud to Bucks story during the Nurse hire. Who's it then? Atkinson? Earl Watson? Stack? Hmmm

Oh, I agree. I thought it was time for Nurse to go, in large part because of his lousy player development. Just a bit annoyed our local reporters are so lazy (cough*Doug*cough) that they wait until the firing is done to report what they know/ get leaked by management.

The problem with Watson is that his record as a coach is truly awful. Yeah he coached a bad team but it was his team and so the results are his to bear.

My suspicion is that the Ujuri will remake the roster first and then hire a coach second. That is unless he is keeping the same roster, then he might hire a coach fast.

I remember this from the last go-round, pretty soon every coach starts sounding awesome.

Right now, the articles coming out about Stackhouse are really intriguing. I didn't know he had built such a resume.

There's a convenient narrative that he's known for utilizing his bench which sounds just like what people are thirsting for. Notably, he took some heat at Venderbilt because he had his number #2 option coming off the bench, just to make sure he had one of his top scorers on the court for longer chunks of time. It seemed to work out very well and people shut up about it.

Apparently the knock on him is he is really tough on his players, and the concern is that while some players really respond to it, some pampered NBA-types might not mesh with him that well. Stack was low on my list last time, but he's sliding up!

Oops, 10 siblings! Including 7 brothers. But a pretty charming dude.

Think Bud is gone? That seems to be the consensus, that this type of loss you can't come back from. Sounds like Lue might be in trouble of getting cut too.

Honestly I'll take either of them and be pretty happy. Might not be perfect but are both very good coaches.

I find myself again wanting Becky Hammon again. I just think a pioneer person, the first to do something, is usually pretty exceptional. She certainly conducts herself well, better than nurse, when asked about moving jobs:

This coaching search is weird. It seems every single candidate is linked to the Raptors too. With so many teams looking you see reports that they interviewed diverting and it seems to always say Toronto also interested in this person. Their list must be 20 people long.