Potential Coaching Candidates

[psrs1]

So what's the point of firing Casey if they're gonna play it safe? Unless Nurse had all these great ideas that Casey refused to listen to this makes no sense. Masai said they need a new voice and they promote an assistant. Oh well

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Casey took years to implement some the suggestions on this forum. Now we just need to find out which poster on this forum is NN. There has been speculation ( probably justified) that Matt Devlin is a least a frequent visitor to this site if not a poster.

[psrs1]

Let’s see who Nurse hires as assistants. Defensive minded hopefully—that would allay a lot on concerns on this site.

[MixxAOR]

Let’s see who Nurse hires as assistants. Defensive minded hopefully—that would allay a lot on concerns on this site.

apparently a bunch of euro dudes

[S.R.]

Casey took years to implement some the suggestions on this forum. Now we just need to find out which poster on this forum is NN. There has been speculation ( probably justified) that Matt Devlin is a least a frequent visitor to this site if not a poster.

Guys on air refer to "the fans" all the time then other go ahead and cite exactly what is on here. I mean these things also show up in social media and on a couple other sites, but this would be a pretty easy place to take a quick look at where (some of) the fans are at.

[Ebonhawke]

tenforthewin is actually Masai's burner account

(for those that don't know, the pink font means I'm kidding)

[KeonClark]

Really like this hire. I'm a little underwhelmed, admittedly, but have to remind myself that when it was down to 4 candidates, I was pleased as punch with any of them. It's only after getting punch drunk infatuated with Jasikevicius that this feels like a "safe" move.

Nurse is definitely not Casey. The Raptors clearly liked the offence (as they should have, it finally held up in the playoffs), and Nurse is that guy. Defence, we'll see, but the offence is definitely in good hands. We'll see with the rotations, substitutions, etc, but that would have been true with any guy.

Don't understand the concerns with Nurse being "soft spoken." First, he seems like a screamer to me, always ends up hoarse in his interviews. Second, is that a problem for a coach? Pop is a pretty soft spoken guy most of the time. Seems to do okay with the whole coaching thing anyway.

I do think this might (because it is literally impossible to be sure with Masai) signal at least one big move involving a core piece (cough, DeRozan, cough), if not a full rebuild (though that could indeed still be coming in the next couple off-season). Hard to sell firing Casey and replacing him with an assistant, even if it is the right move (and I trust Ujiri on that), if you bring back the same roster. A sweeping coaching change, with a new face like Messina or Jasikevicius, could more easily sell the fans on bringing the core back. I don't think Masai worries too much about optics, but it will probably at least be a factor. Could also be hope talking.

I think the optics is the reason masai even put on a show to do more interviews. Nurse has been coveted for awhile. He was arguably one of the top eligible head coaches not currently head coaching in the NBA. I'm excited about it. But I do agree a major or semi major move is still needed. If derozan can't Bring value back at least find value for ibaka or (sadly) win a JV trade. Something. You can't March into next year with the same top 4 players

[tDotted]

How did he get stuck with this soft/quiet/beta thing we're doing now? What indicated he doesn't have a firey temper?

It's in the eyes-- he's got soft ones. The Sarunas dude from Europe on the other hand looks like a stone cold killer

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[DanH]

I think the optics is the reason masai even put on a show to do more interviews. Nurse has been coveted for awhile. He was arguably one of the top eligible head coaches not currently head coaching in the NBA. I'm excited about it. But I do agree a major or semi major move is still needed. If derozan can't Bring value back at least find value for ibaka or (sadly) win a JV trade. Something. You can't March into next year with the same top 4 players

I'd argue it would be tough to march into the season with the same top 2. Is shedding Ibaka or JV really going to change any of the coverage or narrative around the team? In any case, those two almost certainly have the least trade value of the 4, and as bad as Ibaka was, he wasn't really why they lost in the playoffs (and JV was one of the only reasons they won as much as they did). I guess you are right that it could help the optics a bit, but I doubt it actually helps the team much.

[A.I]

I think the optics is the reason masai even put on a show to do more interviews. Nurse has been coveted for awhile. He was arguably one of the top eligible head coaches not currently head coaching in the NBA. I'm excited about it. But I do agree a major or semi major move is still needed. If derozan can't Bring value back at least find value for ibaka or (sadly) win a JV trade. Something. You can't March into next year with the same top 4 players

Ibaka should be traded regardless, but he’ll be tough to trade. JV you keep, see how he does with Nurse, you want a player who steps up in the Playoffs. Lowry and DD are the 2 main players to trade if you want to shake things up.

[Just Is]

I'd argue it would be tough to march into the season with the same top 2. Is shedding Ibaka or JV really going to change any of the coverage or narrative around the team? In any case, those two almost certainly have the least trade value of the 4, and as bad as Ibaka was, he wasn't really why they lost in the playoffs (and JV was one of the only reasons they won as much as they did). I guess you are right that it could help the optics a bit, but I doubt it actually helps the team much.

Yeah, moving JV or Ibaka does nothing about changing the make up of the team (in fact, moving JV specifically is just a bad move in general at this point). If you're going to make a non-core move; you're going to move either DD or Lowry. Of the two; DD has more of a trade value and less value to the team as it stands as Lowry (plus, the one that you don't have to bench during the playoffs). If you're moving a player this summer/draft that's core; it's gotta be Demar.

The key word there is "if."

[LJ2]

Ibaka should be traded regardless, but he’ll be tough to trade. JV you keep, see how he does with Nurse, you want a player who steps up in the Playoffs. Lowry and DD are the 2 main players to trade if you want to shake things up.

Likely true, but if you could trade other players to land a star then I'd be curious to see how DD and Lowry perform when they aren't the "main guys" other teams are guarding. The issue is that those two aren't legit stars but are being used that way.

[Other Scott]

Really like this hire. I'm a little underwhelmed, admittedly, but have to remind myself that when it was down to 4 candidates, I was pleased as punch with any of them. It's only after getting punch drunk infatuated with Jasikevicius that this feels like a "safe" move.

Nurse is definitely not Casey. The Raptors clearly liked the offence (as they should have, it finally held up in the playoffs), and Nurse is that guy. Defence, we'll see, but the offence is definitely in good hands. We'll see with the rotations, substitutions, etc, but that would have been true with any guy.

Don't understand the concerns with Nurse being "soft spoken." First, he seems like a screamer to me, always ends up hoarse in his interviews. Second, is that a problem for a coach? Pop is a pretty soft spoken guy most of the time. Seems to do okay with the whole coaching thing anyway.

I do think this might (because it is literally impossible to be sure with Masai) signal at least one big move involving a core piece (cough, DeRozan, cough), if not a full rebuild (though that could indeed still be coming in the next couple off-season). Hard to sell firing Casey and replacing him with an assistant, even if it is the right move (and I trust Ujiri on that), if you bring back the same roster. A sweeping coaching change, with a new face like Messina or Jasikevicius, could more easily sell the fans on bringing the core back. I don't think Masai worries too much about optics, but it will probably at least be a factor. Could also be hope talking.

I agree with most of this except for the last paragraph. I do think Masai cares about optics, but I don't think that signals major changes - especially since it'll be very tough to get value out of making big trades.

As much as we complain about the Raptors, this era's team has always been a "whole is more than the sum of the parts" team. No individual piece or collection of piece has as much value as the whole, because it feels like each of these players have been optimized by the Raptors and what we see from them is their ceiling. This makes making major trades and still improving or even getting value for a teardown very difficult.

I believe the best course for this team is to continue the internal development, especially of Pascal and OG. Because an optimized version of those players, both with the ability to shoot and extra strength for Pascal so that they can play very small ball lineups with OG at 4 and Pascal at 5 and switch everywhere when the need arises would cure a lot of their defensive woes.

The team won 59 games - I don't care how the playoffs went, in my opinion no team that can win 60 games is that far off where they need to be for the championship. If the Raptors can improve around the margins and have actual 2 way players (which is why OG and Pascal are so important) in their lineup so they can keep up their offensive production while having a REAL top 5 defense (and not one built on feasting on bad teams), this team is there.

Trying to trade and tear down won't get you value with this team. The players aren't worth enough on their own. The best way forward is keep the culture, keep the roster that somehow manages to get the absolute most out of their talent, and hope that continues except with the young players adding the extra talent as they develop.

So, yeah, this offseason is a bit about optics. Because Masai said it himself, he can't keep saying "culture change" and have people believe. The problem with this team now is that they could win 55+ games and that might not keep the seats filled at the exorbitant prices MLSE is charging, because everything thinks the regular season is a bad barometer. So Masai has to keep things changing without actually changing them, new coach, new buzzwords, new things to get the fans excited. But stay the course and hope that interior development gets the Raptors the extra 25% it needs to be a real contender. Because they're closer than that Cleveland series would have you believe.

[Other Scott]

Just to add a little evidence that the regular season means "something", here is the complete list of teams since 1990 that won 60 games in a season and that iteration of the team (within a few years on either side) never became a true championship contender (and I know the Raptors didn't win 60 games but they were close enough):

14-15 Hawks - won less than 45 games both years on either side, this is just an example of a team getting hot for a few months with a new style of play that took some time figuring out
10-11, 11-12 Bulls - Rose injury destroyed them, they would have been well on their way to becoming a real contender
04-05, 06-07 Suns - A bit debatable here, you could very well argue these teams were true contenders. They came pretty close to knocking off a championship Spurs team
03-04 Pacers - Same deal as the Hawks, team that got hot for a year but wasn't replicable success
1996-97 Heat, 1995-96 Magic - Putting these teams in the same category as teams that just ran into Jordan

That's it. There's a lot of 60 win teams, most of them eventually developed into something real. There's not a lot of historical evidence of teams over the course of multiple seasons just being "regular season great" and never coming through in the playoffs.

[Primer]

Honestly my only issue with this move is it could've/should've been made in 2015 after the Wizards swept us. I don't think we gained anything by waiting.

And that way if we needed to make another change now/soon, we could truly look for a fresh voice from outside.

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That's my only issue as well. From the moment we hired Nurse I wanted him to be promoted to head coach, and I think that was the plan, but then Casey did just enough to be retained and delayed the move a few years.

The only negative anyone here has with Nurse is he was Casey's assistant. That's a dumb reason to be down on the guy.

He won 2 G-League championships with 2 different teams.

Before the G-League, he coached in the BBL where he also won 2 championships with 2 different teams.

He's won multiple championships in every league where he was given a head coaching role.

He's an analytics guy and runs a modern NBA offense that was proven very effective last season, including the playoffs.

He's an excellent choice for now and the future (8 years younger than Messina).

His interviews probably consisted of him laying out for hours all the wrong shit Casey did and how he would have done it better had Casey listened.

The fact he and Casey weren't getting along towards the end almost certainly means had Casey been retained Nurse would have left us for another team to get the fuck away from Casey.

I think this hire will work out awesome. The only issue is we should have done it years ago.

[KeonClark]

Just to add a little evidence that the regular season means "something", here is the complete list of teams since 1990 that won 60 games in a season and that iteration of the team (within a few years on either side) never became a true championship contender (and I know the Raptors didn't win 60 games but they were close enough):

14-15 Hawks - won less than 45 games both years on either side, this is just an example of a team getting hot for a few months with a new style of play that took some time figuring out
10-11, 11-12 Bulls - Rose injury destroyed them, they would have been well on their way to becoming a real contender
04-05, 06-07 Suns - A bit debatable here, you could very well argue these teams were true contenders. They came pretty close to knocking off a championship Spurs team
03-04 Pacers - Same deal as the Hawks, team that got hot for a year but wasn't replicable success
1996-97 Heat, 1995-96 Magic - Putting these teams in the same category as teams that just ran into Jordan

That's it. There's a lot of 60 win teams, most of them eventually developed into something real. There's not a lot of historical evidence of teams over the course of multiple seasons just being "regular season great" and never coming through in the playoffs.

The first question should be: do we have a top 5 player

If no: do we have 3 or 4 top 20 players

If no: you're screwed