Nick Nurse Favored to Win NBA Coach of the Year Honors

• Raptors head coach Nick Nurse has emerged with the shortest odds to win the 2019 NBA Coach of the Year Award
• Can Nurse take Toronto to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history?
• How much credit does he really deserve for the Raptors’ red hot start?

Luka Doncic and Deandre Ayton aren’t the only NBA rookies having a profound impact on their teams this season. Rookie head coach Nick Nurse has also been killing it during his first year on the job, and he’s currently the betting favorite to win the 2019 NBA Coach of the Year Award.

Nurse’s +275 odds place him comfortably ahead of past recipients Mike Budenholzer, Doc Rivers, and Steve Kerr, as well as highly regarded bench bosses like Billy Donovan, Brett Brown, and Brad Stevens.

2019 NBA Coach of the Year Odds

The Raptors were already very good before Nurse took the reins from Dwane Casey, but he’s helped them to unlock a new gear by improving the team’s spacing and increasing its pace from a year ago. The Raptors are now playing faster and looser than ever before and, at 21-5, are off to their best start in franchise history.

Nick Nurse. #Legend 👏🏼 pic.twitter.com/fwaRvDDS1d

— Brendan Dunlop (@Brendan_Dunlop) November 30, 2018

Nurse’s fingerprints are all over the team, but his influence has been especially evident in Toronto’s exceptional metrics as the team ranks in the top five league-wide in offensive rating, net rating, points per game, field goal percentage, and plus/minus.

Eastern Conference Coach of the Month Nick Nurse and the @Raptors have been on a tear in October and November leading the @NBA with a .826 Win% and a 19-4 record, while also shooting 49.4% from the field! pic.twitter.com/Wzbo05J5CG

— NBA Coaches Assoc. (@NBA_Coaches) December 3, 2018

The NBA recently rewarded Nurse for the Raptors’ red hot start by naming him the Eastern Conference Coach of the Month for games played in October and November. The Iowa native is just the third coach in franchise history to win the award and the first rookie head coach to receive the honor since Luke Walton in 2015.

The award was a long-time coming for the 51-year-old Nurse, who got his first head coaching gig way back in 1991 at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa. He spent the next two decades bouncing around the British Basketball League and the NBA D-League, where he won a pair of championships in 2011 and 2013. Nurse joined the Raptors in 2013 and spent last season as Casey’s top assistant.

Last 5 NBA Coach of the Year Winners

Is Nurse the Smart Bet?

Nurse has done a spectacular job in Toronto, but he also inherited a rock-solid 59-win team that bolstered its core by adding a two-time Defensive Player of the Year in Kawhi Leonard. Frankly, it would be shocking if the Raptors weren’t among the NBA’s best teams.

The NBA Coach of the Year Award often goes to the coach who has done the most with the least, and no one fits that description better than Doc Rivers. The 57-year-old has guided the Clippers to third place in the Western Conference despite not having a single All-Star on his roster.

Coaches Who Have Won Multiple Coach of the Year Awards

Rivers deserves ample credit for coaxing career years out of Danilo Gallinari and Tobias Harris, and for overseeing the development of Shai Gigeous-Alexander, who looks like a lock to be named to the NBA’s All-Rookie Team. He’s been so good, in fact, that he has the Clippers poised to return to the playoffs in what many projected as a rebuilding year. That’s nothing short of a minor miracle, and it’s why we’re putting our money on Rivers at +700.