Is Nick Nurse Overrated?

[Rendei]

If he gets bounced in round 1, then he’s done worse than both Doc Rivers and Brett Brown, who were eviscerated in Philly. If that happens…. you tell me.

Have you watched the series at all or no? I mean, this roster is objectively worse than what Doc coached or when Brett Brown had Jimmy Butler. I mean Morey traded away players in hopes of revamping the roster in the offseason.

Do you think a lot of other coaches would be winning this series with a gimpy Embiid?

People were calling Nurse a clear top 2 or 3 coach in the league. It’s literally never his fault for anything bad, but he gets all the praise for anything good. It’s wild. Never seen an NBA coach so staunchly defended by so many supporters, without any real reason, as Nurse.

There was that box and 1 defense he had his team play that one time against Curry in the finals. That was his shining moment.

[Jabroni Lames]

Have you watched the series at all or no? I mean, this roster is objectively worse than what Doc coached or when Brett Brown had Jimmy Butler. I mean Morey traded away players in hopes of revamping the roster in the offseason.

Do you think a lot of other coaches would be winning this series with a gimpy Embiid?

People were calling Nurse a clear top 2 or 3 coach in the league. It’s literally never his fault for anything bad, but he gets all the praise for anything good. It’s wild. Never seen an NBA coach so staunchly defended by so many supporters, without any real reason, as Nurse.

There was that box and 1 defense he had his team play that one time against Curry in the finals. That was his shining moment.

If you have super high IQ all-defense players like: Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol, Fred VanVleet, Kawhi and Danny Green…. you can pretty much draw up any play and have it executed on the fly. Or even draw up no play, which Nurse did a lot.

Try running that box &1 with Chris Boucher, Precious Achiuwa, Gary Trent, etc…. that would Shaqtin a Fool.

But you’re right… Nurse has been living off that box & 1 for 5 years now.

[cupcakesnake]

lol. This is compete rubbish. You have absolutely no idea how much credit to attribute to Nurse vs everybody else. Like Dwane Casey who gave those guys minutes and other assistant coaches? What about the players themselves and their off-season trainers? Even Casey gave Siakam all the credit for development…. and he had a front row seat.

In this instance we do actually know where the credit is due. Nick Nurse was assigned to working in the offseason to create a bench lineup based around the teams young guys (Siakam, FVV, Poeltl, and Delon Wright). Like you can credit Casey for assigning Nurse to that task, but the principles on offense and defense were installed by Nurse. That bench unit literally outplayed the starting lineup in 2018. It seems even more obvious to credit Nurse because in 2019, the "bench mob" strategic principles got moved to the starting lineup with Nurse taking over the head coaching position. Siakam became a starter, and Lowry completely changed from his pick & roll attack to his quick passing and movement based game.

If Nurse is so great at developing bench units, then why does he only trust like 6, maybe 7 players? That's always been his M.O. He runs veterans and a small handful of guys he trusts, into the ground. Nurse sucks at developing a deep bench. That's undeniable.

Really depends on what you think of the players involved. Despite his profile, Nick Nurse is a pretty new coach (6 seasons, 5 with one team), so it's easy to point at what's happened and call that his coaching style, strengths, or weaknesses.

Nick Nurse started his career by developing a great bench, and that trend continued for a couple seasons. The front office kept losing starting players (Kawhi followed by Gasol, Ibaka, Lowry) and replacing them with projects they believed might pop (Chris Boucher, Stanley Johnson, De'Andre Bemby, Matt Thomas, Patrick McCaw) and late draft picks/undrafted rookies (Terrance Davis, Malachi Flynn, Dalano Banton). They got Trent for Norm, and turned Lowry into Precious Achiuwa, but in general a brutal talent drain was taking place in Toronto but the expectation to win wasn't draining at the same rate. Not sure what that has to do with coaching.

I don't really look at the list of players and think this is "undeniable" proof that Nurse can't develop a deep bench. Developing a deep bench does involve coaching, but the players acquired is the more important factor. I feel blaming the coach for not turning those players into a deep bench is a bit of stretch, but I know it's a commonly held opinion.

You also can't really use this Phili year as evidence either. The Sixers lost Embiid, Oubre, Melton, and Covington for large chunks of the season, and the team still didn't play anyone huge minutes outside of Maxey. 11 different players played at least 19mpg when they were available.

[cupcakesnake]

People were calling Nurse a clear top 2 or 3 coach in the league. It’s literally never his fault for anything bad, but he gets all the praise for anything good. It’s wild. Never seen an NBA coach so staunchly defended by so many supporters, without any real reason, as Nurse.

There was that box and 1 defense he had his team play that one time against Curry in the finals. That was his shining moment.

If you have super high IQ all-defense players like: Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol, Fred VanVleet, Kawhi and Danny Green…. you can pretty much draw up any play and have it executed on the fly. Or even draw up no play, which Nurse did a lot.

Try running that box &1 with Chris Boucher, Precious Achiuwa, Gary Trent, etc…. that would Shaqtin a Fool.

But you’re right… Nurse has been living off that box & 1 for 5 years now.

No offense, but comments like this make it sound like you listen to sound bites more than watch Nurse's teams play basketball.

The box & 1 hasn't been a major part of Nick Nurse's defensive system. It was just a famous moment. He has done a lot of defensive stuff aimed at star stopping, so there's the "spirit" of the box & 1. But to say he uses a lot or is "living off" makes it sound like this isn't an area of knowledge for you.

[Jabroni Lames]

There was that box and 1 defense he had his team play that one time against Curry in the finals. That was his shining moment.

If you have super high IQ all-defense players like: Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol, Fred VanVleet, Kawhi and Danny Green…. you can pretty much draw up any play and have it executed on the fly. Or even draw up no play, which Nurse did a lot.

Try running that box &1 with Chris Boucher, Precious Achiuwa, Gary Trent, etc…. that would Shaqtin a Fool.

But you’re right… Nurse has been living off that box & 1 for 5 years now.

No offense, but comments like this make it sound like you listen to sound bites more than watch Nurse's teams play basketball.

The box & 1 hasn't been a major part of Nick Nurse's defensive system. It was just a famous moment. He has done a lot of defensive stuff aimed at star stopping, so there's the "spirit" of the box & 1. But to say he uses a lot or is "living off" makes it sound like this isn't an area of knowledge for you.

Mis-reading a sentence and going off in the wrong direction makes it sound like you don't have experience reading forum posts... which I know you obviously do.

"Living off that famous Box & 1 moment" would've been the way to phrase it, but it was pretty obvious to anybody else that nobody here thinks that Nurse (or any other coach), uses Box & 1 as a mainline defense.

[cupcakesnake]

If you have super high IQ all-defense players like: Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol, Fred VanVleet, Kawhi and Danny Green…. you can pretty much draw up any play and have it executed on the fly. Or even draw up no play, which Nurse did a lot.

Try running that box &1 with Chris Boucher, Precious Achiuwa, Gary Trent, etc…. that would Shaqtin a Fool.

But you’re right… Nurse has been living off that box & 1 for 5 years now.

No offense, but comments like this make it sound like you listen to sound bites more than watch Nurse's teams play basketball.

The box & 1 hasn't been a major part of Nick Nurse's defensive system. It was just a famous moment. He has done a lot of defensive stuff aimed at star stopping, so there's the "spirit" of the box & 1. But to say he uses a lot or is "living off" makes it sound like this isn't an area of knowledge for you.

Mis-reading a sentence and going off in the wrong direction makes it sound like you don't have experience reading forum posts... which I know you obviously do.

"Living off that famous Box & 1 moment" would've been the way to phrase it, but it was pretty obvious to anybody else that nobody here thinks that Nurse (or any other coach), uses Box & 1 as a mainline defense.

Glad it was a misunderstanding. Sorry for misrepresenting you!

[Jabroni Lames]

In this instance we do actually know where the credit is due. Nick Nurse was assigned to working in the offseason to create a bench lineup based around the teams young guys (Siakam, FVV, Poeltl, and Delon Wright). Like you can credit Casey for assigning Nurse to that task, but the principles on offense and defense were installed by Nurse. That bench unit literally outplayed the starting lineup in 2018. It seems even more obvious to credit Nurse because in 2019, the "bench mob" strategic principles got moved to the starting lineup with Nurse taking over the head coaching position. Siakam became a starter, and Lowry completely changed from his pick & roll attack to his quick passing and movement based game.

If Nurse is so great at developing bench units, then why does he only trust like 6, maybe 7 players? That's always been his M.O. He runs veterans and a small handful of guys he trusts, into the ground. Nurse sucks at developing a deep bench. That's undeniable.

Really depends on what you think of the players involved. Despite his profile, Nick Nurse is a pretty new coach (6 seasons, 5 with one team), so it's easy to point at what's happened and call that his coaching style, strengths, or weaknesses.

Nick Nurse started his career by developing a great bench, and that trend continued for a couple seasons. The front office kept losing starting players (Kawhi followed by Gasol, Ibaka, Lowry) and replacing them with projects they believed might pop (Chris Boucher, Stanley Johnson, De'Andre Bemby, Matt Thomas, Patrick McCaw) and late draft picks/undrafted rookies (Terrance Davis, Malachi Flynn, Dalano Banton). They got Trent for Norm, and turned Lowry into Precious Achiuwa, but in general a brutal talent drain was taking place in Toronto but the expectation to win wasn't draining at the same rate. Not sure what that has to do with coaching.

I don't really look at the list of players and think this is "undeniable" proof that Nurse can't develop a deep bench. Developing a deep bench does involve coaching, but the players acquired is the more important factor. I feel blaming the coach for not turning those players into a deep bench is a bit of stretch, but I know it's a commonly held opinion.

You also can't really use this Phili year as evidence either. The Sixers lost Embiid, Oubre, Melton, and Covington for large chunks of the season, and the team still didn't play anyone huge minutes outside of Maxey. 11 different players played at least 19mpg when they were available.

"Nick Nurse started his career by developing a great bench". WTF. This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is categorically false.

People just assume false narratives are true and generally accepted... attributing greatness to Nurse with no factual basis to back it up. Nurse's great bench was developed by Dwane Casey... who famously had something called "role cards" to make sure that young guys got their proper footing in the NBA, before they moved on to more difficult tasks.

Nurse, on the other hand, has complex schemes which require high BBIQ, making it very difficult for young players and bench guys to crack the rotation... hence, Nurse's list of players he actually trusts... is low. That's why he can't develop benches and also why he burns out his top rotation players.

[CoP]

Nick Nurse is 3-7 without Joel Embiid this year. Honestly, I was expecting a lot more from a coach a lot of people hail as a "genius". Last year, I believe Doc Rivers had a winning record without Embiid and Harden... something like 8-2 or 7-3, IIRC.

Kind of like when Spo is routinely handed a roster of scrubs, undrafted, re-treads and malcontents that would make a G-League coach blush, but somehow manages to keep the Heat competitive and steal a few games. I thought Nurse was in the same coaching tier as Spo, but I guess not.

Before claiming that he's overrated, where do you think he is generally rated? I'd say he's generally rated on that second tier of coaches, behind Spo, Kerr, and Popovich, and alongside Malone, Lue and maybe Carlisle. I think that's about right. Malone should probably go in that top tier.

[OfficialRef]

All I know is that if this were Doc Rivers in place of Nick Nurse people would be calling him an overrated bum that gets carried by his players. Nurse has a healthy squad with a player that can put up 50 points and hes still losing to a Knicks team without Randle.

[cupcakesnake]

If Nurse is so great at developing bench units, then why does he only trust like 6, maybe 7 players? That's always been his M.O. He runs veterans and a small handful of guys he trusts, into the ground. Nurse sucks at developing a deep bench. That's undeniable.

Really depends on what you think of the players involved. Despite his profile, Nick Nurse is a pretty new coach (6 seasons, 5 with one team), so it's easy to point at what's happened and call that his coaching style, strengths, or weaknesses.

Nick Nurse started his career by developing a great bench, and that trend continued for a couple seasons. The front office kept losing starting players (Kawhi followed by Gasol, Ibaka, Lowry) and replacing them with projects they believed might pop (Chris Boucher, Stanley Johnson, De'Andre Bemby, Matt Thomas, Patrick McCaw) and late draft picks/undrafted rookies (Terrance Davis, Malachi Flynn, Dalano Banton). They got Trent for Norm, and turned Lowry into Precious Achiuwa, but in general a brutal talent drain was taking place in Toronto but the expectation to win wasn't draining at the same rate. Not sure what that has to do with coaching.

I don't really look at the list of players and think this is "undeniable" proof that Nurse can't develop a deep bench. Developing a deep bench does involve coaching, but the players acquired is the more important factor. I feel blaming the coach for not turning those players into a deep bench is a bit of stretch, but I know it's a commonly held opinion.

You also can't really use this Phili year as evidence either. The Sixers lost Embiid, Oubre, Melton, and Covington for large chunks of the season, and the team still didn't play anyone huge minutes outside of Maxey. 11 different players played at least 19mpg when they were available.

"Nick Nurse started his career by developing a great bench". WTF. This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is categorically false.

People just assume false narratives are true and generally accepted... attributing greatness to Nurse with no factual basis to back it up. Nurse's great bench was developed by Dwane Casey... who famously had something called "role cards" to make sure that young guys got their proper footing in the NBA, before they moved on to more difficult tasks.

Nurse, on the other hand, has complex schemes which require high BBIQ, making it very difficult for young players and bench guys to crack the rotation... hence, Nurse's list of players he actually trusts... is low. That's why he can't develop benches and also why he burns out his top rotation players.

Like I've said before, Nurse spent the offseason working with those young players. He was tasked with developing a different offense and defense for a 5-man unit. This was well documented at the time and was a big reason Nurse was interviewed for the HC job when Casey was fired. I'll say again, the proof is in the pudding when the 2019 Raptors used the same offensive principles as the 2018 Raptors bench lineups.

I agree with the sentiment that it's hard to parse credit with assistant coaches. Every now and then it's pretty loud about what a asst coach's assignment was and how it's being used. Thibs with Boston's overload defense, for example. He brought the same principles to Chicago (while Doc didn't use similar defenses in LA), so we feel pretty comfortable crediting Thibs. Jeff Bzdelik with Houston's switching defense. This one is more subtle but D'Antoni has an established rep of staying away from defense, and New Orleans (Bzedelik's next associate job) used similar principles under Alvin Gentry.

Again, you'll have to convince me that Malachi Flynn, Dalano Banton, and Matt Thomas were definitely ready to seize rotation roles when Nick Nurse wasn't using them enough. If you believe that, that's fine and we disagree. If you don't believe that, I think there's a missing piece of the puzzle in terms of who Nurse failed at developing.

[Zenzibar]

Watch on YouTube

[Jabroni Lames]

All I know is that if this were Doc Rivers in place of Nick Nurse people would be calling him an overrated bum that gets carried by his players. Nurse has a healthy squad with a player that can put up 50 points and hes still losing to a Knicks team without Randle.

You summarized brilliantly it in 2 sentences. Kudos.

[Jabroni Lames]

Nick Nurse is 3-7 without Joel Embiid this year. Honestly, I was expecting a lot more from a coach a lot of people hail as a "genius". Last year, I believe Doc Rivers had a winning record without Embiid and Harden... something like 8-2 or 7-3, IIRC.

Kind of like when Spo is routinely handed a roster of scrubs, undrafted, re-treads and malcontents that would make a G-League coach blush, but somehow manages to keep the Heat competitive and steal a few games. I thought Nurse was in the same coaching tier as Spo, but I guess not.

Before claiming that he's overrated, where do you think he is generally rated? I'd say he's generally rated on that second tier of coaches, behind Spo, Kerr, and Popovich, and alongside Malone, Lue and maybe Carlisle. I think that's about right. Malone should probably go in that top tier.

Here's my ranking from before, which I've tweaked to add Malone and lower Kerr. Malone is waaay better than Nurse. Not even in the same stratosphere. Malone developing a 2nd round, overweight, unathletic Euro into a 7-ft Larry Bird & league MVP is nothing short of miraculous. I'm probably hugely overrating Pop at this point.... he's clearly been washed since Kawhi left Spurs.

Tier 1)
Spo
Pop
Malone

Tier 2)
Carlisle
Bud
Kerr

Tier 3)
Vogel
Rivers

Tier 4)
Nurse
Ty Lue

Keep in mind, these are only coaches who are lucky enough to have GMs build a chip-winning squad for them. Thibs and Stevens are a few tiers higher than Nurse, but don't have chips.

[ConSarnit]

Maybe it's just me but it would be cool if the guy making $39m this year could do a better job than 8.8ppg on 45% TS.

[WentzerWuver]

Thibs is missing a 25 ppg / 10 rpg / 5 app all-star, while Nurse has his full squad including the reigning MVP and a rising all-star.

I have never in my life seen a coach that gets more excuses made for underperforming than Nick Nurse. Literally Teflon.

You think he's underperforming with Philly?

If he gets bounced in round 1, then he’s done worse than both Doc Rivers and Brett Brown, who were eviscerated in Philly. If that happens…. you tell me.

Only agree on Doc but no way is he worse than Frett Brown. This wannabe coach was a push over who doesn't hold players accountable. He turns his head instead of telling Ben to improve on his shooting and preferred Tobias over Jimmy for being too vocal when team were deciding on which one to keep.

Nurse holds players accountable for the most part but he whines and make excuses too much for my taste. I take Doc all day long!

[WentzerWuver]

honestly, this Knicks team reminds me a lot of the Lawry, Fred Van Vleet, OG raptor teams while Nurse was coaching... say whatever you want, Nick Nurse is a great coach... might not be as great as some people think about ...but he is a great coach

By saying he is a great coach just shows you don't know much about it. Joel wants Doc back if he can right now.

[ConSarnit]

Nick Nurse is 3-7 without Joel Embiid this year. Honestly, I was expecting a lot more from a coach a lot of people hail as a "genius". Last year, I believe Doc Rivers had a winning record without Embiid and Harden... something like 8-2 or 7-3, IIRC.

Kind of like when Spo is routinely handed a roster of scrubs, undrafted, re-treads and malcontents that would make a G-League coach blush, but somehow manages to keep the Heat competitive and steal a few games. I thought Nurse was in the same coaching tier as Spo, but I guess not.

Before claiming that he's overrated, where do you think he is generally rated? I'd say he's generally rated on that second tier of coaches, behind Spo, Kerr, and Popovich, and alongside Malone, Lue and maybe Carlisle. I think that's about right. Malone should probably go in that top tier.

Here's my ranking from before, which I've tweaked to add Malone and lower Kerr. Malone is waaay better than Nurse. Not even in the same stratosphere. Malone developing a 2nd round, overweight, unathletic Euro into a 7-ft Larry Bird & league MVP is nothing short of miraculous. I'm probably hugely overrating Pop at this point.... he's clearly been washed since Kawhi left Spurs.

Tier 1)
Spo
Pop
Malone

Tier 2)
Carlisle
Bud
Kerr

Tier 3)
Vogel
Rivers

Tier 4)
Nurse
Ty Lue

Keep in mind, these are only coaches who are lucky enough to have GMs build a chip-winning squad for them. Thibs and Stevens are a few tiers higher than Nurse, but don't have chips.

Just so we're clear:

Nurse: down 3-1 = overrated

Vogel: swept in embarrassing fashion with 2 top-15 players = still better than Nurse

[ConSarnit]

Nick Nurse is 3-7 without Joel Embiid this year. Honestly, I was expecting a lot more from a coach a lot of people hail as a "genius". Last year, I believe Doc Rivers had a winning record without Embiid and Harden... something like 8-2 or 7-3, IIRC.

Kind of like when Spo is routinely handed a roster of scrubs, undrafted, re-treads and malcontents that would make a G-League coach blush, but somehow manages to keep the Heat competitive and steal a few games. I thought Nurse was in the same coaching tier as Spo, but I guess not.

Before claiming that he's overrated, where do you think he is generally rated? I'd say he's generally rated on that second tier of coaches, behind Spo, Kerr, and Popovich, and alongside Malone, Lue and maybe Carlisle. I think that's about right. Malone should probably go in that top tier.

The guy hasn't provided a single actual criticism. The entire basis of his argument is "record not good, coach overrated"

Jabroni is just offering "feelings". No one should listen to anything he says until he points out why Nurse is overrated and what exactly Nurse should be doing differently.

[Jabroni Lames]

Before claiming that he's overrated, where do you think he is generally rated? I'd say he's generally rated on that second tier of coaches, behind Spo, Kerr, and Popovich, and alongside Malone, Lue and maybe Carlisle. I think that's about right. Malone should probably go in that top tier.

Here's my ranking from before, which I've tweaked to add Malone and lower Kerr. Malone is waaay better than Nurse. Not even in the same stratosphere. Malone developing a 2nd round, overweight, unathletic Euro into a 7-ft Larry Bird & league MVP is nothing short of miraculous. I'm probably hugely overrating Pop at this point.... he's clearly been washed since Kawhi left Spurs.

Tier 1)
Spo
Pop
Malone

Tier 2)
Carlisle
Bud
Kerr

Tier 3)
Vogel
Rivers

Tier 4)
Nurse
Ty Lue

Keep in mind, these are only coaches who are lucky enough to have GMs build a chip-winning squad for them. Thibs and Stevens are a few tiers higher than Nurse, but don't have chips.

Just so we're clear:

Nurse: down 3-1 = overrated

Vogel: swept in embarrassing fashion with 2 top-15 players = still better than Nurse

Not just based on this one series. Vogel has had success without top 5 superstars. He took a Pacers team led by a very young PG and Roy Hibbert (lol), to the ECF... twice. What has Nurse ever done without Kawhi, Lowry, a stacked team + catastrophic injuries to his opponents?

[Jabroni Lames]

Nick Nurse is 3-7 without Joel Embiid this year. Honestly, I was expecting a lot more from a coach a lot of people hail as a "genius". Last year, I believe Doc Rivers had a winning record without Embiid and Harden... something like 8-2 or 7-3, IIRC.

Kind of like when Spo is routinely handed a roster of scrubs, undrafted, re-treads and malcontents that would make a G-League coach blush, but somehow manages to keep the Heat competitive and steal a few games. I thought Nurse was in the same coaching tier as Spo, but I guess not.

Before claiming that he's overrated, where do you think he is generally rated? I'd say he's generally rated on that second tier of coaches, behind Spo, Kerr, and Popovich, and alongside Malone, Lue and maybe Carlisle. I think that's about right. Malone should probably go in that top tier.

The guy hasn't provided a single actual criticism. The entire basis of his argument is "record not good, coach overrated"

Jabroni is just offering "feelings". No one should listen to anything he says until he points out why Nurse is overrated and what exactly Nurse should be doing differently.

lol. Talk about offering "feelings" vs. actual reasons. I'm providing actual tiers and comparisons to other coaches, who are not hailed as geniuses, but have acheived as much and more than Nurse. For example: Give me a good reason why Nurse should be ranked ahead of Bud or Carlisle for example... when he routinely is? One concrete reason he shouldn't is that those guys made ECFs with non-MVP calibre players teams and different franchises. Nurse, on the other hand, morphs into Tim Floyd when you take away Embiid.

The thread is about over-rating Nurse, which means you have to rank or rate him. This thread is aimed at the folks who rank Nurse above the other coaches who have won chips. And I'm not even getting into the coaches who haven't won it all (like Thibs, Stevens, etc...).

Care to take a crack at rating / ranking your top coaches, so we can all critique it?