Are the Raptors and Nick Nurse heading towards a separation?

Amit Mann and Imman Adan discuss the recent comments by Nick Nurse, the oddities of the Raptors season and what it means for the future. Listen to the full episode on the 'Raptors Over Everything' podcast feed.

Video Transcript

IMMAN ADAN: Are the coaching staff and front office, are they-- do we believe that they're sort of--

AMIT MANN: Well, I mean, that's probably a great-- great question.

IMMAN ADAN: In sync.

AMIT MANN: It's-- admittedly, it's very unclear with Nick Nurse's comments that he said recently about his future. And, you know, 10 years is a long-- good time to reflect. Like, OK, sir, you're under contract. At the same time, though, I would imagine for any coach who is in-- going into a contract year, that it's just poor business to do that to a coach, to put them on that kind of leash.

IMMAN ADAN: Oh.

AMIT MANN: So that's why most coaches are extended, or you move on from the coach, right? Because this is poor business. It's not a great look. It's not the same kind of dynamics between a player and a coach going into a contract year. You have to solidify that.

And if you're-- you truly do believe that Nick Nurse is part of your future-- and me, personally, like, I mean-- I don't know. I'm curious what players think about Nick Nurse because as we have all talked about, something weird has gone on this season. And I want to know what it is.

Is it Nick Nurse? Is it the players? Is it a player-- player, coach versus GM kind of dynamic, that kind of thing? Because they're like, hey, we need a starting center. It's been a couple of years. It could really help. And they've actually been a lot better, obviously, with Jakob Poeltl. It's solidified a lot of things.

And also, hey, we still need three-point shooting. So as Nick Nurse, you might say, you give me these things, and now we're cooking. But to me, from what I understand, is that management-- and this is-- I'm including Nick Nurse in here is that this has been a part of their development. They want to develop these players to become, you know, a rim protector, a Precious Achiuwa, right?

Like, obviously there are some limitations with his size. But you want him to be able to be that kind of backup center role, but also be able to guard on the perimeter. You want Precious to be able to hit threes. You want OG to get more reps. You do all these things because you want encouragement-- encourage development between your solidified core within your franchise.

So if you fire Nick Nurse now, I'd be like, well, you didn't give me the pieces? And now you're judging me based off of this? That's not fair.

IMMAN ADAN: Yeah. I mean, I kind of wrote something similar for Yahoo about the players. And I think--

AMIT MANN: Hey.

IMMAN ADAN: --to your point, that is exactly what I would say for Nick Nurse. It's kind of-- I talked about how the Raptors gave DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry every opportunity. They were like, you guys need more three-point shooting. We're going to bring in a three and D guy. You guys actually need a stretch four. We'll bring that in.

They kept trying different pieces until DeMar DeRozan proved that like, hey, it still doesn't work in 2018. And then they moved on from DeMar. And they also moved on from Dwayne Casey. It was a similar thing. Hey, Dwayne Casey, you need, you know, DeMarre Carroll. You need a PJ Tucker. You need a Serge Ibaka.

We're going to bring these guys in. If it still doesn't work, then we're moving past you. And I thought that the Raptors did not give a fair chance to this core. And to that point, they didn't give it a free hand to Nick Nurse either because one in the same, when you're looking at it that way.

But to your point, if there is some drama behind the scenes that we're just not privy to, who knows. And I just-- I feel like Nick Nurse's comments were just-- that sort of threw me all out of whack a little bit. And it'll be really interesting to see what the Raptors do this summer because not only do they have Nick Nurse's contract, but they also have three players.