76ers hire former Raptors head coach Nick Nurse

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Joel Embiid and the 76ers battled in yetanother playoff game with the Raptors, this time in 2022, when theAll-Star center barked at Toronto coach Nick Nurse —in a quite PG-13fashion— to stop whining about foul calls.

Embiid’sbeef with Nurse didn’t end in the playoffs. After the two-time NBAscoring champion was held — held, in quotes — to 28 points in a2022 regular-season game, Embiid charged the Raptors “don’t careabout winning” as long as a player of his stature was held belowhis scoring average.

Hey, whatcould go wrong this season? The 76ers didn’t even play the Raptorsin the playoffs.

Yet, whenBrooklyn frustrated Embiid in a first-round series, the league MVPcomplained the Nets “kind of took the Nick Nurse route of beggingfor free throws and calling out the referees.”

OK, theintroductions might be awkward. Or at least good for a laugh. Butthe 76ers are now counting on Embiid and Nurse to work together ina productive relationship as the new pair chases the franchise’sfirst championship since 1983.

With thefate of 10-time All-Star James Harden in the balance, the 76ersremained all-in with their championship pursuit on Monday,selecting Nurse as their new coach to try and end more than twodecades of playoff failure.

The 76ershired the 55-year-old Nurse following hisexitlast month from Toronto Raptors,a person with directknowledge of the decision told The Associated Press. The personspoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the team had notannounced the move.

Nurse ledthe Raptors to the 2019 NBA championship after they beat Embiid andthe 76ers in Game 7 of the the Eastern Conference semifinals. The76ers not only haven’t a title in 40 years, they haven’t advancedpast the second round since 2001.

Nurse willreplaceDocRivers, who was firedafter he led the 76ers to theirsecond straight 50-win season behindNBAMVP Embiidbut again failed to lead them to the EasternConference finals.

The 76ersheld a 3-2 semifinals series lead against Boston before droppingGame 6 at home and were crushed in Game 7 on the road.

The 76ersstill have to decide if they will try to bring back Harden — who isexpected to decline the $35.6 million option on his contract andbecome a free agent — but making a move for a championship-winningcoach like Nurse shows the franchise is still all in as it goes infor a championship with Embiid still in his prime.

Nurse went227-163 in his five seasons as coach in Toronto, where his .582winning percentage ranks as the best of any coach in Raptorshistory. He also spent five years as an assistant to former Raptorscoach Dwane Casey before taking over the top job.

Nurseseemingly made his first play for the 76ers’ job in March when theRaptors were in town for aregular-seasonvisit. Nurse said his relationship with president of basketballoperations Masai Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster was at acrossroads and time would be needed to decide on his future.

“It’s been10 years for me now, which is a pretty good run,” Nurse said. “Idon’t know, over those 10 years, we’ve got to be up there withnumber of wins for anybody in the league. I don’t know what it is,but we’ve had a lot of good seasons.”

Nurse wasright: Only Golden State (.661) had a better winning percentagethan Toronto (.613) in that span.

Nurseplayed at Northern Iowa, then started his coaching career there asan assistant. He wound up becoming a head coach at Grand ViewUniversity when he was just 23. He coached in Belgium and Britain —winning a pair of British Basketball League titles as a coach inBirmingham in 1996 and London in 2000 — then got a couple of titlesin what is now called the G League.

The secondG League crown with Houston’s team got Nurse noticed, with theRaptors calling because they wanted to talk to him about offense.They ended up hiring him as an assistant, and he’d been withToronto ever since.

The Raptorsfinished 41-41 this season before losing at home to the ChicagoBulls in the play-in round of the postseason.

Sixerspresident Daryl Morey continues to build the team around his oldHouston Rockets connections. Besides Harden — and PJ Tucker andDanuel House, among others — Nurse coached Houston’s GLeague-affiliate Rio Grande Valley Vipers for two seasons whileMorey was in charge. Nurse won the G-League title in 2013 beforemoving on to a successful NBA career.

Nurse ledthe Raptors to the title in his debut season. And despite KawhiLeonard’s departure, the Raptors were playing well before theCOVID-19 pandemic halted the season in March 2020. Toronto wasn’tthe same in the bubble and lost to Boston in seven games in thesecond round of the playoffs, though Nurse did win the NBA Coach ofthe Year.