Nick Nurse is a Talented, Albeit Flawed Coach. Firing Him Will Not Save This Season. Or This Team.
ANALYSIS
If you want the TL;DR then just scroll to the bottom and read the bolded letters. Otherwise, read on.
When a team is struggling, underperforming, etc., the coach is the easiest guy to blame, easier still to take the fall with a simple firing. The Jazz did it with Quinn Snyder. The Clippers did it with Doc Rivers.
Ditto the Lakers with Frank Vogel. The Suns went through, like, 7 coaches in 7 years before landing Monty Williams.
With the Raptors recent, rather embarrassing loss to the Utah Jazz, a team that got worse after the deadline while the Raptors filled in one of their holes, there has been a lot of criticism lobbed at Nick Nurse for some of his decisions made in the 4th such as keeping in Fred VanVleet in the 4th after picking up an early foul call, as well as not playing the center they traded for after they were getting killed in the paint (Outscored in the paint overall 76-48) late in the quarter after their lead evaporated.
As a recent reaction to that loss – which in all fairness, was largely due to Nick Nurse’s decisions in the 4th quarter – there have been calls to fire Nick Nurse, most notably by David Thorpe, and after today’s presser featuring assistant coach Adrian Griffin with Nurse being absent, coupled with Masai’s comments about concerns regarding the development of some of their younger players, there has been some speculation about him being given a pink slip. (There was an alleged spotting of him at Pearson airport that is unconfirmed thus far).
We won’t know for sure what the situation is – for all we know this could be a family or
