Raptors' Nurse Wins NBA Coach of the Year

For some, it should be Mike Budenholzer of the Milwaukee Bucks who finished with the best record at the end of the 2019-2020 regular season. Others thought it should be Oklahoma City's Billy Donovan as nobody thought that the Thunder would make the playoffs and yet, they did and they even won Game Three against the Houston Rockets to come within 2-1 in the series. In the end, this season's Coach of the Year award went to the coach whom many believed deserve the award last season when he transformed the Toronto Raptors into a championship team in his first try, Nick Nurse.

With the National Basketball Association (NBA) playoffs already in full blast with the Raptors only needing one more win against the Brooklyn Nets to clinch a seat in the Eastern Conference semifinals, Toronto Coach Nick Nurse has been officially named as the winner of the Coach of the Year award after receiving 90 first-place votes from a panel of 100 sportswriters and broadcasters and ended up amassing 470 points. Budeholzer- a two-time Coach of the Year, received five first-place votes and scored 147 points while Donovan came in third with four first-place votes and ended with 134 points. The voting was conducted on games that were played until March 11, 2020, and until that time, Toronto owned the second-best record in the Eastern Conference at 46-18. They did it despite Marc Gasol missing 28 games while also dealing with the departure of Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green during the 2019 offseason.

This also marked the first time that a Coach of the Year awardee in the NBA G-League ended up winning the same award in the NBA as during his stint with Iowa Wolves during the 2010-2011 season saw Nurse being named the NBA G-League Coach of the Year.

Nurse now joins Dwane Casey and Sam Mitchell who won the Coach of the Year award that is named after the legendary Boston Celtics coach, Red Auerbach. 

Photo is from Raptors HQ