Nick Nurse Part 2: On His Coaching Staff and Expecting To Win

This podcast is part of the seventy six ers podcast network, presented by Stern and Cohen Law Search seventy six ers Insiders, wherever you get your podcasts. Nick Nurse, Welcome back. Great to see you. I wanted to ask you something about your book. You said that being a head coach is

Yeah.

First of all, I'm never the leader of a jam band. I'm always a member of the jam band when we jam. Sure, Okay, But anyway, listen, I think that my job is obviously to get the vision for the season right and then trying to to know these guys as intimately as possible, and then it's to try to get them to perform at their best or maybe even better than they think they can, right, Like, the vision's got to be big and there's got to be a plan to put that all together.

I do equate it to.

The band, because let me now and then we're gonna leave some room for something spectacular like a solo or something like that. Right, So, I think the music sports analogy is a good one.

Comfort among the group is something you pointed out as well. How do you foster that when you don't have a ton of time to get to know a new group of players.

Yeah, well, I've tried to spend a lot of my summer getting to know them, right, I think, as any probably most coaches, as soon as they get the job, I went around to see everybody face to face, right, and then I obviously see some of them in Vegas, and then we have voluntary workouts in LA and then we have.

The fall workouts.

So just just trying to stay in touch with them and try to get them on the floor, get in the gym with them, watch them, film with them, whatever it is, and use some of that time to get to know them. And I think it's really important for anybody taking over a new team.

Since we last spoke, you assembled a staff, yes, and something specific I wanted to ask you about what's it like to have people on your staff that are growing as coaches who you once coached as players. For those who don't know, you coached thirty years before becoming a head coach and along some of those stops. Now are people on your staff here at the Sixers.

What's that like, Well, it's great, I think it's I think you know, you develop those relationships and most of those guys were amazing players and you know, or teammates or leaders or just a combination of all.

That stuff, and it's great to see.

Them have such good careers and then it's time to move on to the next phase of their life and that's in coaching. And again, most of those guys are all tremendous leaders I got I would say like the one commonality in my staff because there's a lot of winners. There's a lot of winners on the staff, either as players or coaches. A lot of G League or D

To the best of our ability, and so have a lot of our assistants.

Speaking of winning, you guys had the better of now you guys in Toronto in twenty nineteen, and I went back and I watched Kawhi's shot, and I watched you the way you were crouched watching you exclaimed right away when the shot went in, you like had a big gesture and then immediately you drew it in and you walked to the scorer's table. How important is that ability to regulate your own emotion in your job.

Yeah, I mean, that's good. I haven't thought about that.

I just remember that I immediately was going to find Brett Brown to tell him, you know, like that was an unbelievable, like iconic series, right, And I just wanted to give him the respect that he deserved there because it was. It was an awesome series. One for the ages. We're all still talking about it for sure, right. Yeah,

So I was happy went in, as you saw.

But and then I kind of thought, let's get to work for the next series as well.

A mantra that you brought to Toronto before that I understand was expect to win. It's something that's now plastered in the building here. I see you're wearing the bracelet. But you started expect to win, if I'm not mistaken in Birmingham, and that was an organization that needed like a huge reva. Right, So when you think about I'm sorry, I should have Birmingham, England. So when you think about the journey that you've gone on with expect to win, why is it so important for you to bring it here?

Well, it's it's just kind of theo. Right.

It did start in Birmingham. It was kind of my first professional coaching job. I think I was twenty eight years old, so almost thirty years ago. Just again, a lot of the things that end up happening or are created by necessity, and I just felt like that organization at the time needed like a shift in this like how we're seeing things and just kind of stayed with me.

And again, my background of coaching a lot in.

Like the what you call the backwaters of basketball, maybe England and Belgium and Texas and Oklahoma and all these places that iow, all these places I've been.

A lot of things.

Happen, right, the bus breaks down, Well, what are we not gonna expect to win?

Now?

Guys get called up, Three guys get called up right before the game. Well, you know it's kind of you get thrown in so many situations. You didn't really have much choice other than to get your mind right and try to figure it out. Let's get a game plan, let's play hard, and let's figure out there's got to be a way to do it. And I think that's the mindset that again, my background and training.

Is provided the same background that led you to have overlap with some coaches. You've had overlap with some players on this team. I just talked to pat Patrick Beverley about your very brief overlap Ario grand Valley, someone you had a more notorious overlap with with Danny Green in Toronto the year that you guys won, And when I sat down with him, he said that you are the biggest reason why he wanted to be a seventy.

Six er this year.

What do those words mean to hear from a player that's had a lot of success.

Well, I could just throw the bounce pass right back at him.

I mean, he was a really integral part of that culture and that expect to win.

I mean, he just he just embodies it.

I mean, jeez, look, he's won three titles and a fourth if you want to count the NCAA title too, and he brings that like mentality of and in a positive way like that, I know how to win. I've done it, and here's here's how we're going to do it without being soverbearing. He's such a key ingredient and key member to the team. Now, Danny was just a good, solid player. He shot the three, fit really good with us, He was great in the locker room. He understands defensive schemes,

Something that stood out to me again, back from the book, you talked about how you like aesthetically pleasing basketball. What do you find about this seventy six ers team as it's composed today most aesthetically pleasing.

I'm not quite sure on that. Yet what I do know is that they're very hard. They were very hard to compete against. Right, there's so many different things of like almost like just start with Tyres and Joel, Like, first of all, you got this big, huge, biggest guy in the league.

You got to try to fend.

Then you've got literally the fastest or one of the fastest, you know, I think really close. And that's like such a wide range of things that you have to see.

But that's that's probably it.

I think there's there's so much variety on the team everything in between there that it makes it super interesting to watch.

Last question for you, let's think back to that young coach in Birmingham, England, or even before that as a player coach. Knowing now what your journey has looked like in the thirty plus years as a coach that's that have transpired, what advice would you give to young Nick Nurse fresh out of college.

I'll give young Nick Nurse the same advice I give a lot of young coaches that ask me for advice, just to say, don't take my path.

My bad was all over the place. Not that's not true.

I just you know what I like at a very young age, I wanted to coach, and I really had to see if I was any good at it.

That's kind of partly where I took.

A college job at twenty three, in a pro job at like twenty.

Seven, I just had to. Like I had all these ideas, I just had to take.

Them, take them somewhere, and I took them some funny places, but at least I was able to get them out and try them.

And here we are today, well.

The city and your players are excited to see how you apply those ideas here. So thank you so much.

We're looking forward to it.

Thanks for having me