True, but Nurse should also get some of the credit for Barnes winning ROY and dramatically outperforming expectations his first season, putting the kid in a position to succeed right away. It's not a fair expectation to expect a young player to overcome a major weakness in his game by year 2 and pin the blame solely on the coach when that doesn't happen. Ujiri's quote about player development regarded the lack of opportunity for certain young players. Barnes featured very heavily into what the team was doing, no lack of opportunity. His playmaking improved some, his defense continued to be very good, there are just limitations that playmakers face when they can't shoot. And learning how to shoot takes time, and often times just never happens. I've got no strong preferences when it comes to the coaching search, no agenda. Just trying to be objective and fair
i actually don't think Barnes should have won it. But that's my preference. overcoming major weakness is the extreme logic here. nowhere did i say that. Development is about progression. And Barnes literally showed 0 signs of any type of progression in year 2. Point being here is for a team like the rockets in the current stage of development, they need someone capable of so. A teams 2nd year prized roy staggering with no development definitely isn't a good sign, especially when they were trying to win and play meaningful games doing so. From what I've seen everything he did a year ago is the exact same this year. and his lack of development is one of the reasons why they went to cancun. They got the usual contributions from their usual core of FVV/Siakim. Even OG stayed relatively healthy this year which is obviously rare. If your best young guy isn't taking steps forward, well their ceiling goes nowhere
FVV became a pretty damn good defender and didn't start off as one. He averaged 12/5 his senior year of college. Without a doubt Nurse got more out of him and put him in a position to become one of the best undrafted players ever. Sure he had decent shooting splits and per 36 numbers as a rookie but that really only tells part of the story. Learning to do the same at volume with higher usage is another thing altogether.
I would not be surprised if Morey is eyeing Nurse for the 76ers job. That clown Stone better not whiff of Ime and Nurse. I’m worried
I don't think you watch the Raptors. The current top 3 players for the Raptors are FVV (undrafted), Siakam (late first found pick), OG (Late first round pick). Under Nurse two of them became all stars, and OG developed into one of the most priced role players in the league. If that's not player development, I don't know what is. FVV has pretty much peaked, mainly due to his age and recent injuries. But he remains one of the best undrafted players ever who developed under Nurse. Scottie was projected to be a project pick because he was so raw coming into the draft. The fact that he even won ROY speaks volumes by itself. The guy really didn't have too much fundamentals (couldn't shoot, couldn't really dribble) out of college, was pretty much a big bodied defender that could sometimes pass.
https://theathletic.com/4426066/2023/04/20/rockets-coach-candidates-nick-nurse/ To get a better understanding of who Nurse is, his style, his tenets and analyzing a potential fit, we sat down with The Athletic’s Raptors beat writer Eric Koreen, who has covered Nurse closely for all 10 years Nurse has been with the Raptors, first as an assistant and then as head coach. Eric, thanks for doing this. You’ve been around Nick Nurse for a long time. How would you best describe his style of coaching? I’m going to start by not answering your question, Kelly, because it’s important to get this out in front: It’s very difficult to separate a coach’s performance from the roster he has. That goes for good, bad and average — your 2022-23 Raptors: 41-41, 13th in offense, 11th in defense, 12th in net rating and first in your hearts — alike. That needs to be considered in everything I say below. Through five years, I’ve seen Nurse coach teams of varying degrees of quality, and the main throughline is that he tries to dictate the terms of a game or series. Is that a style? I don’t know. But Nurse is generally trying to Moneyball things from a game-to-game perspective. Where is his opponent’s weakness? What is his team built to do that might not fit conventional basketball? What isn’t his opponent ready for? He’s constantly trying to keep his opponent off balance. That sounds like a combination of analytics and more traditional coaching. Nurse has an NBA title that naturally gives him an edge in any coaching search but no coach is perfect. What are some of his shortcomings or areas for improvement? His communication skills could probably stand to improve a little bit. If something as innocuous as his “10 years is a long time” comments from late in the season can go awry — and they upset a few players — it stands to reason that not all of his one-on-one conversations with players are going great. Given truth serum, I think some players would have appreciated more direct conversations, although you can never discount the possibility of those players just not liking what they were hearing. There are times in the last few seasons when I also thought he could have been more open to wider-ranging changes than he adopted. He is generally very good with the details and changing from game to game, but he can be hesitant to make big-picture changes on the fly. (That makes sense: Overhauling things amid a regular season, with less and less practice time, is a logistical nightmare.) The Raptors have had several personalities over the last few seasons. Was Nurse able to garner the respect of a locker room? How did that translate to accountability on the floor amongst his players? Nurse won a title in his first year as an NBA head coach. He had some truly great and accomplished players on that roster, and young players who have become even better since, but you don’t do that if you can’t get players to buy into what you’re selling. Even this season, I can’t say the team quit on Nurse’s aggressive defensive tactics. They caused the most turnovers per possession in the league, even as they were savaged on drives and from 3. The Raptors didn’t consistently execute what Nurse was trying to get them to do, but I didn’t see many instances of them not trying to do it. However, Nurse frequently called out players in public. Gary Trent Jr. said during exit interviews he would find out before Nurse came to him personally to express his concerns. As you’d expect, more players didn’t love that. Excluding the 2018-19 season where the Raptors finished sixth in offensive efficiency, Nurse’s teams have hovered around the middle of the pack on that side of the ball. What are his offensive pillars? Going back to 2017-18, his last of five years as an assistant to Dwane Casey, Nurse preached some version of “next-action basketball.” Nurse wants his players to assess a situation, and if it’s not advantageous, to move the ball a station to keep the defence moving. I’ll go back to my first point: The Raptors very much failed to execute that in the last few years. Nurse continued to talk about it, but he realized that with Pascal Siakam, Scottie Barnes and O.G. Anunoby, players who default to surveying the landscape before making a move, he could only expect so much. The Raptors’ half-court offense was their most obvious weakness over the past two years, but I put that more on the roster he had than Nurse. Saying that, for a guy who came into the league with a reputation for being one of the better offensive minds, the lack of development from last season to this season was disappointing. What about on the other side of the ball? What defensive principles does Nurse lean on routinely? More than anything, aggressiveness is his calling card. That can be dialed up or down (do you dial things down?) with his roster, but he liked to err on the side of putting pressure on the offense. Even with more traditional centres like Jonas Valančiūnas, Marc Gasol and Jakob Poeltl, the Raptors weren’t playing much standard drop-back coverage in pick-and-rolls. There was some, especially when he had a more veteran-laden roster, but not a lot. Also, he will experiment. The box-and-1 (which you can see as aggressive or passive, depending on your viewpoint) is the most famous example of this, but there was a game against the Rockets in the 2019-20 season when the Raptors sent an extra player to James Harden every time he touched the ball past midcourt. And if Ben McLemore didn’t hit eight 3s, they probably would have won it. Nurse prides himself on being a defensive innovator. This is where you’ll see him get weird. The Rockets still are in a position where they need to develop young players but also want to add veterans. How has Nurse fared in merging the two in Toronto? *Cut to Raptors fans screaming incoherently* If the Raptors and Nurse are indeed heading for a split, this is one of the biggest reasons why. In both of the last two seasons, no team relied more on its starters than the Raptors. Not all of those starters are veterans, as Barnes was one of them, but Nurse’s faith in younger players on the roster such as Precious Achiuwa, Malachi Flynn, Dalano Banton and others waxed and waned. In fairness to Nurse, none of those players consistently earned their minutes. We go back to the old catch-22 of developing players, though: A player cannot play consistently well until a coach believes in him, but a coach cannot believe in a young player until he plays consistently well. That the Raptors still do not know what they have in those players is a problem and the fairest criticism of Nurse. In-game, what was the collaboration between Nurse and his assistants? How does he stack up with adjustments on the fly or adapting to what the game presents? Nurse has tended to delegate long-term assignments across his staff, with assistants tackling offence, defence and “special teams” — inbound situations and the like — for multiple games at a time. In-game, Nurse is very hands-on. He absolutely listens to his staff, but he relies on his gut and feel often. Again, strategically, I believe he’s in the top-third of the league. That goes for in-game as well as pregame. How would he be able to augment the skill sets of Jalen Green, Jabari Smith Jr. and Alperen Şengün? I’d have to do a deeper dive into the Rockets to be able to answer this question more fully. However, given the lack of a true rim-protector now, Nurse would ratchet up the defensive pressure he asks from all his players. How that mindset fits with Şengün would be, uh, fascinating. I do think Nurse would love Şengün on the other end. He enjoys big men who can make plays, and Şengün fits the bill. He would also demand Green continue to develop as a playmaker for others. It would sort of be the opposite issue he had with Barnes, who he was constantly trying to prod to look for more opportunities to score rather than looking for his teammates. If Nurse and the Raptors part ways, what will be the main reason why? As I mentioned above, I don’t think he and the front office were quite aligned on how he was using some of his younger players. Plus, Nurse has been with the Raptors for 10 years — five as an assistant, five as a head coach. It’s a long time, especially for a coach who likes to push and challenge himself as much as Nurse does. Gregg Popovich and Erik Spoelstra are the exceptions, not examples of the rule. He wouldn’t be the first coach to win a championship and leave his team within the next five years.
My point is that I'm not sure where he'll improve until his shot is respectable. It puts a cap on his playmaking ceiling and he's already a fantastic defender. Its a major weakness and is what's holding him back, not really a head coach issue unless he was being utilized incorrectly, which I don't feel he was. I'm not saying that "overcoming a major weakness" is your logic or standard, more that its just a fact of Barnes' skillset and development arc
I don't think you're even following the conversation. Oh those are the 3 top players? Who would have thought. Anyway. Oh and its funny with all that said, that team can't even make the playoffs in the east.so multiple all stars and one of the best role players in the league still isn't enough? yikes You know why Scottie is being highlighted. well because the current kids of the rockets and best players are literally where Scottie is. Being ROY doesn't speak volumes by itself. It's politics. Mobley/Cade easily had just as good of a case to win. It wasn't some unanimous decision. So if Scottie already staggers in year 2 why should I feel any type of confidence that same thing doesn't happen here with kids the same age. If he literally couldn't do much then his room to grow should be that much bigger. now that actually speaks volumes for someone going from year 1 to 2
shooting isn't the standard for improving. and there's plenty of other areas where players develop outside of it.
You said Nurse had trouble with player development. Why don't you tell me who developed FVV (from undrafted d-league player to all star), Siakam (late first round pick to all NBA player), OG from late first round pick to an awesome role player. Are you denying their development.
Ok, then can you explain where Barnes specifically should be improving? Because speaking in generalities is pointless when we're talking about a specific player. Like I've said, he's already a plus playmaker at his position and did improve some in that area his sophomore season. His defense is already very good. He plays off-ball some but having a wing off-ball that can't really shoot is a major offensive liability. For Barnes specifically, being unable to shoot is going to prevent his offensive development in other areas. And defensively there's not much more upside and the improvement wouldn't be easily quantifiable anyway
He checks all the boxes, this guy is as well-rounded as it gets. [x] NBA champion (2019), a recent one that. The other recent head coach champions (other than Vogel) are not on the market. Even guys like Spolestra has to go back 10 years ago (2013). Pops last one was 2014. Recent champions. 2022 - Kerr 2021 - Bud 2020 - Vogel 2019 - Nurse [x] Has Rocket ties. Not the most crucial, but it helps. Other candidates: sam i am. [x] Can coach both side, defense being stronger. Has shown it in the playoffs. (other defensive candidates: Udoka and Vogel). As the Athletic noted, a defensive innovator. Even this year, causing the most TOs of any team. Something our team sorely needs. [x] NBA coach of the year (2020). Again a recent one at that. Only one in the candidate pool who has this. (Kenny, Ime, Frank don't). [x] Development coach. 2x D-league champion (2011, 2013), D-league coach of the year (2011). Got Scottie Branes the ROTY over the guys ahead of him (1st year Cade, Mobley, and .. even Green, though the Green thing is partly Silas' fault). And we all know Barnes can't shoot, but Nurse made him look pretty to the voters. Nurse got Lowry his bag, and we see Lowry under Spo is just old and injured. Keep an eye on Raptors standing next season; their current 41-41.... and their DEF/OFF rtg. A real good chance that will drop with their next coach. [x] Possible relationship pulls with future players. Maybe a FVV, and if down the road guys like OG goes to free agent. -- if all current 30 NBA head coaches are available to the Rockets, Nurse would rank in top 5. He doesn't come from a coaching tree, he is the tree.
Nurse is actually an offense X and O coach, which is what I want the most for this role. Silas let the kids run wild on offense, and it was detrimental to Green, Jabari and Sengun's development of good habits. Nurse will bring solid structure to this circus. Hopefully it will correct some of the terrible habits of the past 3 years.
If he was a girlfriend, he'd the one with the pretty face, banging 10/10 body, 140 IQ, A+ personality, and comes from a loaded family.
I find it hard to believe that a g league coach who won a championship in the g league developing youngsters would all of a sudden ignore that aspect when he becomes a hc.
If we could force more turnovers that would improve our offense a lot by proxy. We have some players who could be great in transition but they didn't get to show it much under Silas' uninspired coaching schemes.
