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Welcome back, everybody to the seventy six Ers Insiders podcast. I'm Lauren rose in here with Matt Murphy on the heels of Nick nurses introductory presser and our time with him on his first day as the head coach of the seventy six Ers. Matt Murphy, what's going on?
Lauren Rosen, little off season podcasting here, new coaching higher. It was good to be back in the facility, heard from Darryl Murray, Josh Harris, and of course the man of the hour, Nick Nurse, the twenty nineteen championship winning coach with Toronto, the twenty twenty MBA Coach of the Year. Something Darryl Murray talked about was his winning at all different levels and stages of basketball. He's a by my account and I think els to a five time champion
at three different levels. Carol, Iowa native, and you got the chance to have a one on one conversation with him, which everyone out there will here during this episode of seventy six Ers Insiders. Some really good stuff in there Obviously, you guys went pretty in depth on some things, but just from a surface level, it was good to be back. The energy was good surrounding that day.
And it's interesting, Matt, There's been a lot of continuity with this roster, and I found myself sort of reflecting about how almost rare it is to speak to someone new and someone that I didn't know and haven't had experience sitting down one on one with so cool to sort of strip it down, do the research, get the background, and think about from Nick Nurse's perspective over the last ten years, of course with the Toronto Raptors, what it's been like to watch this Sixers team very up close,
very personal, and now to sort of flip everything that he already knows about this team on its head and activate the things he was working to limit over the last ten years. He called what the Sixers and Raptors have shared a bit of a rivalry, and I think if you ask players on this team, Joelle Embiid Tyree Snaxy have both talked about the fact that they feel some personal beef with the Toronto Raptors, just based on playoff series, seeing them in the preseason, playing miniseriies with
them in the regular season. It does feel like, while, of course we play the Raptors the baxim amount of times you can play any team, and you've probably seen them about the same amount of times as you've seen the Boston Celtics or the Miami Heat over the last few years, there is something personal there, and so now to have all of that experience that both teams have shared on the same side. I'm looking forward to it.
It sounds like Nick is looking forward to it, and I really enjoyed our conversation.
When you think about the handful of years he spent as an assistant coach in Toronto and then another handful as the head coach, and you talk about the scheduling, there is a familiarity there, even from our seat. So I can't imagine how heightened that is for people who are game planning against one another, whether it's members of the coaching staff or in this case, the players that we've talked about who are part of those game plans. And it feels like we all know Nick Nurse a
little bit because of the last decade or so. One thing I wanted to touch on before we get to your interview is him talking about Tyrese Maxey's speed because this is just not something he's talked about on his first day as the Sixers coach. It dates back his respect for Tyrese Maxey as a player and how fast Maxie is.
You saw me behind the scenes for a couple of days trying to dig up a specific quote that Nick Nurse spoke to describe Tyrese Maxey.
I thought it was.
In the playoffs, but I wasn't positive, and I knew it was pretty effusive. Of course, like in the NBA, it's rather rare to hear head coaches praise opposing players with the amount of I don't know, enthusiasm. I guess that Nick Nurse shared in this quote about Tyree, so
I ended up finding it. It was an April twenty fifth, twenty two quote from during that series between the Sixers and the Raptors last season's opening round at the playoffs, Terresa just scored thirty eight points, his playoff career high against the Toronto Raptors.
I found the quote.
I read it to Nick Nurse, and if you guys want to hear the rest of the conversation, stick around for the next ten minutes or so, because here it is Nick Nurse, Welcome to Philadelphia. We are very excited to have you. You said upstairs in your intro presser that you believe this is a team that could play tonight in the NBA Finals. So when you made the decision to come here, what are those factors about this team that makes you believe they could still be playing at this point in the season.
Yeah, well, first hand, close up look of.
Playing against them, for sure.
I think that the quality of the roster, the combination of Daryl Elton and I've known Darryl for a long time and their track record for putting a roster together. Ownership is second to none, you know, as I did my research and all those things.
But mainly I think.
It's a chance to try and try and win it all. I mean, that's that's what coaches are do. We get up, We get up every day trying to figure out how to get there to the end and be playing tonight.
Right. So excited Joelle.
Says that all the time, right, that that's the ultimate goal, is to win it all. Joel is someone that you, as an opposing coach, perhaps did maybe the best job in the league of limiting over the years. How do you even go about conceptualizing trying to now activate what you were once trying to limit when it comes to Joel.
Yeah, I mean, first of all, like a lot of those things that we did, throwing everything in the kitchen sink at him, was done out of necessity.
Really.
I mean, we were just trying to stop a really, really, really great player, and we would do something and he'd figure it out, we'd have to do another thing, and so the list got pretty long in the end, and it kept you know, I think again, to his credit, he kept figuring out things just scheme wise to combat what we were doing, and then he started figuring out.
Things skill wise from year to year two.
So I'm glad I don't have to do that anymore and play against him, because it is it is difficult, and it is nice to have a player with that skill set and mindset. I would think he's a real competitor and all those kind of things, and I think he's hungry.
That was another reason I took the job. I think this team's hungry.
Yeah, it's a team that had some iconic battles with the Raptors during your time there. For better and for worse, we think about Kawhi's shot, we think about Joelle's game winner in the playoffs last season. When you think about the times that you played against this team, either those memories or are there any sleeper memories that come up for you when you think about what it was like to face the Sixers.
First of all, I winced when you talked about his fade away that seemed to bother.
Me more than the one that went in. That's coaching for you.
And first of all, but just like I think in the eighteen nineteen series, again, like once we got into it, but maybe after Game three, I just kind of remember taking the team into the locker room at the arena we were practicing is here in town for Game four, and just the list of like issues that we had, you know, like there's some really good players, we don't need to go through them all, but there was so many things we had to do for each guy, you know,
starting with starting at the top obviously, and then there was things that we need to do better offensively, and there was a pocket of things that we had to do just effort and energy wise, and I just kind of remember that being like, wow, that's a lot and that we had to do because that was a very very good team and an unbelievable series.
An unbelievable series. Indeed, you mentioned the guys that you had to work through. Tyrese Maxey wasn't one of them. But last year's playoffs in twenty twenty two, you had some effusive praise for Tyrese. You said he's the fastest guy out there by a mile. He's super fast. With those type of guys, that's usually their whole game and it's not with him. He's also a great shooter with really great touch. A year later, he became a top five most efficient shooter in the NBA. He's gotten better.
He's only twenty two. So what excites you about Tyrese today?
So getting better part, Like, that's a good synopsis what I said there. So it must have been fresh after he torched us for about thirty six or thirty eight
points or something. So yeah, So I mean it was, like, you know, it's it's kind of almost like the reverse of like the guy who was bigger than everybody growing up and just you know, dominated at the basket, like the little fast guys, even though he's not that little, but the fast guys just can use their speed to produce so much that they don't develop maybe other parts of their game are a well rounded game. But I was just amazed at how like good a shooter he became.
And then you know, again like he's laid in at the front of the rim. Well, we had to do a lot of things to try to get there, and he just kept you know, the touch just part. He just kept going further and further away and still making him and it was just like, holy you know, we're gonna do here, and we really didn't figure out what to do very very well.
So, but the thing I like about him is.
Good dude, right, hard worker, loves the game, wants to get better, and has a ton of a god given ability. Right, that's a pretty good combination of a guy that's going to impact the team.
Yeah, looking back on your career, we'll start somewhat recent and then get a little bit further back, but you've worked with Daryl Morey before, So can you tell us sort of the nature of your relationship when you were for those that don't know, the head coach of the Rio Grand Valley Vipers when he was in Houston. What your dynamic was like then and then what it's been like to stay in touch and reunite now.
Yeah, So I kind of went there as a reason to try to develop myself as a coach. They were heavy analytics before analytics was even fashionable yet, and so I kind of wanted to get in there and learn some of those things. When I interviewed for the job down there, he was like, this is going to be a total laboratory for you to try things. And that really interested me again to just try and improve and that's not that.
Easy to do.
You need you need backing to kind of like say we're going to do this, and then we'd be like what they say, say no, try it, you know, just see what happens, you know, or whatever.
So that was good, and I just there was a lot of just collaboration away from that.
Even I just remember like when the season would be over in Rio grand which is down there along the Mexican border, I'd go back to Houston and we'd we'd sit in there all day watching basketball prospects or whatever and just talking talking the game and how to how to do things, you know, like can is there a better way to do things?
And or how good is this player? How does he fit? You know? So a lot of a lot of time together.
Yeah, a couple of decades prior to that experience with Darryl, you spent time internationally, You coached in college. You've had a plethora of stops, but it's been a while since you've had to start fresh after ten years in Toronto, right, So what can you take from those experiences starting over over and over again through your youth of coaching, into this experience starting over today.
Yeah, so like just kind of kinaund logically. Like one thing I do know is that the first six months of taking a new job in the NBA is really something. It is really a whirlwind of intensity that I didn't really know when I got.
The raptor's job. So I was, you know, I understand.
Like, okay, here we go, here we go, Like six months is going to be something. So that is a good,
good experience to have been through. And just like all the other stops, I don't even know if this is your question or not, but I'm just was like I was always just trying to learn stuff and try stuff and get put in so many, so many situations of like you know, boxing one or only having six players available for a game, or having a great team and all of them getting called up one day to the NBA and the d League and having to teach really fast.
You know, all those all those kind of things just add to an experience, you know, and a growth experience.
But you know, like mostly it's.
How can you connect the team, how can you get them to play a little bit harder? Right, like, just continually trying to experiment with how that can work. And I think that's really like two really huge things of winning.
Basketball away from the court or I guess adjacent to the court. I'm told that you travel with musical instruments.
I used to don't anymore.
Well, we're going to think about that.
I used to for sure. I don't know why we're going to do that going forward, but go ahead with you.
Sorry to meet an interrupt I'm curious where that passion came from, how important it is to balance basketball with life and what music sort of means to you.
Yeah, so just you know, my mother's side of the family was really musical. I'm the youngest of nine kids, and we all had to kind of try to do something with music other than.
Just play sports.
It was a struggle for most of us because we really played a lot of.
Sports, so.
And just kind of now for me it is total like my.
Zone place. I guess play a little bit. I'll listen.
Whatever it is, we use it at practice to create energy.
And I try to learn.
It's kind of a stretching like like of create you know, your mind, so you can maybe hopefully some of that stuff gets stretched to be creative in my day job, right, day night, whatever job.
This is right, Yep, that's awesome, and hopefully you'll get embedded in the Philly music scene.
Oh for sure, can't wait.
Last question, I promise it's okay. You said in your intro pressor that you don't vibrate in the frequency of the past. Clearly you've learned a lot from your past understanding that we're not vibrating in that frequency. Though. What do you think the future looks like for this sixer team? What do you hope the future looks like while you're here?
Well, I really kind of mean that like an incredible tradition here, but it doesn't really have to do with what we're trying to accomplish next year, right, good or bad? There's a lot of great tradition here and then we're in this little second round thing that everybody wants to talk about. Doesn't even like enter my mind right like, like I'm just trying to figure out how we can get this team to play its.
Best basketball when it really matters.
I don't think last year of the year before, ten years, before twenty years has anything to do with that.
Awesome well, we look forward to watching that future with you.
Thanks a long time, you got it, anytime, appreciate it.
Thank you, Thanks of course to Nick Nurse for sitting down with us on his first day in the facility. It was awesome to just see the facility through his eyes on his first day. There was a lot of energy in the building, a lot of positivity around the new head coach, and just awesome to get to know him a little better. He was super candid, super comfortable, and I really enjoyed the conversation for sure.
The part about him learning on the first six months of a new job, particularly a new NBA job, is really interesting and like the first day and the first week, I can't even imagine he's done a time a ton of interviews. I'm glad that we got your unique interview
in the mix here. A lot of people have seen some clips and seen the video on the six Ers YouTube channel, but for our podcast network listeners, maybe people from the Twitter spaces community, people who are hearing it in audio form, It's just one of many media hits that he has done. I know it comes with the territory, and I'm not feeling bad for him in any sort of way, but in our limited exposure to him, he was very personable to everyone and he met a lot
of people. I've been telling everybody I'm reading Nick Nurse's book Rapture. I'm like halfway through, so I have to finish it because I'm at the part where he becomes the Toronto Raptors head coach. But some of my takeaways about maybe who he is as a person, or some insight into his personality that we saw on display when he was meeting everyone, is that he's this lifelong learner. And before the conversation there, I mentioned his different coaching stops.
He's been a lot of different places, multiple kinnes, multiple leagues, multiple teams. Something that I think is interesting is how he's worked to develop as a communicator in this job. So quick fact is that he has his PhD from Concordia University, and he's very interested in how people learn and kind of developing these relationships. So I'm interested to see how that goes with the players on the team, because he's someone who's always striving to get better, better,
not just with x's and o's. It's well documented that he's a very smart basketball coach, but I think over his career he's really worked to become a well rounded basketball coach and leader and has experience.
Of course, I liked hearing about his relationship with Darryl Morey, the way that the two of them used the Rio Grand Valley Vipers.
As talking G League now, of course.
As an opportunity to not necessarily pilot and like brand new concepts in the NBA, but try new things and
see what works, see what doesn't. And then it's been cool to see him sort of apply a lot of those concepts he talked about Darryl giving him the freedom to experiment with in the G League as head coach of the Raptors, And of course you follow that whole world a lot closer than I do, but you've shared with me a lot of different things about what his reputation was like in the G League, the lasting impact
he's had there. So for you to have followed him through that phase, in this phase, what do you make of that part of his experience as he joins the seventy six ers.
I think it really helps, particularly in the regular season. So on the one hand, you have his playoff winning percentage being very high at sixty one percent, But when you're talking about the grind of an MBA regular season, the lineup can look different at times, and in the G League the lineup always looks different. So he's learned how to have his system in place so that anyone can do it and execute it, and you can kind of mix and match different pieces in what is a
long season. And then something I've heard for years in the G League from various coaches and executives is their goal is to win, but another is to have the group as many players as possible leave the season in a better situation than they were when they came in. And that I think originates with Nick Nurse when he was a G League coach. He wanted to elevate guys to the NBA or even to better teams in Europe or anywhere. Overseas and at the NBA level, I think
it still applies. I think you can still help guys improve their individual careers, win individual awards, and have it lead into team success. So at first glance, it might not appear that that G league principle of the two different things, winning and better situations applies directly, but I think it does well.
He's talked about it on some other shows shout out to former sixer JJ Reddick and The Old Man and the Three. But something that stood out to me when he talks about sort of what his initiatives are as a head coach. It's, of course, to win, but it's also the words he used is to raise the market value of each player.
On the team.
And of course Nick Nurse, someone who has a reputation for playing maybe shorter rotations or higher minute loads for similar guys, also has a reputation for growing young guys into really useful NBA players, And I loved hearing him talk about the way that Joel Embiid's market value is obviously as high as it can get for an NBA player right now, Tyrese Maxey approaching that same sort of caliber, but there are a lot of younger players on this team whose values can still rise and cool to imagine
what it's going to be like to have Nick Nurse working with Jaden Springer, working perhaps with returning free agents or new sixers that we don't even know yet. I'm looking forward to seeing how he applies that principle to this roster, and of course growing roster as the off season continues.
One thing we know for sure is that he is going to do the work when he knows who he has at his disposal in order to maximize what those what the lineups can do on both ends of the floor. One thing we do not know for sure is if he will bring his guitar on the road with them. He sort of downplayed the music side of his background. I feel like that's one of those things where maybe he's gotten asked about it and he doesn't want to make his whole it's not his false thing. Sure, yeah, music,
but he's interested in music a piano guitar. He may or may not be traveling with a musical instrument this coming season, so we'll have to report.
Back on interested in what it was like to be the youngest of nine kids as well. I would imagine as a coach, and of course in this situation, it wasn't necessarily the case at the beginning of his coaching career. He's been coaching since he was twenty two to twenty three years old, but at this phase he is the
oldest of the players on the team. But I wonder what it was like growing up in that type of environment and how team building and group cooperation, collective cooperation he might have had a let's say, very very significant leg up on other people when it comes to figuring out how to work with different personalities and coexist with different personalities. So of course looking forward to seeing how that might shine through as we watch him closer.
As Daryl Morey said, it's one step. The head coach position being filled is one step to what the Sixers organization hopes is many steps that eventually leads to an NBA championship, another NBA championship for this storied franchise. But it's a good step, it's an exciting step, and it's good to jump back on here and talk about some fresh seventy six Ers news with you always.
Of course, great to be back on the seventy six Ers Insiders podcast. More content to come. As the off season goes along, Matt Murphy and I already looking forward to NBA Summer League, which is just around the corner.
So we appreciate you as always.
Matt, thank you so much.
Thank you. We'll be back for it. Thank you everybody for listening.