LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida – Toronto Raptors manager Nick Nurse was named NBA Coach of the Year for the 2019-20 season on Saturday afternoon.
The nurse, who led the Raptors to an NBA championship last season in her first time as the team’s head coach, received 90 of the 100 possible top-spot votes from media members chosen to vote for the season’s end-of-season awards. championship after leading Toronto to a second place in the Eastern Conference for a second consecutive season despite NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard leaving free agency.
“When you see Nick on the sidelines, that’s who he is as a person. Relaxed, but so hardworking. Creative and dynamic. Always setting the tone for our team – attacking our next league rather than defending our last”, President of the Masai Raptors Ujiri said in a statement. “That’s who Nick is, that’s why we believe in him. His journey to this enormous honor has been a long one. We are so happy to see him recognized in this way.”
The nurse, who led the Raptors to a record .736 franchise win rate during the regular season, was followed in the voting by last year’s winner Milwaukee Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer and Oklahoma City manager. Billy Donovan, who were recently named co-winners of the National Basketball Coaches Association Coach of the Year award. Become the third Raptors manager to win the award, after Dwane Casey (2017-18) and Sam Mitchell (2006-07).
Nurse, 53, embarked on a long and winding road to the NBA, spending several years coaching in England and the NBA’s G League before becoming assistant to the Raptors in 2013, a job he held for five seasons before succeeding. to Casey in 2018.
Toronto can close a Brooklyn Nets sweep in the first round of the NBA playoffs with a win Sunday night here inside the NBA bubble at Walt Disney World Resort.
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the turmoil it has caused the NBA calendar, it has prompted the league to change the way it distributes its prizes again.
Unlike the past two years, when the NBA announced its winners on an awards television show in late June, this year the league reverted to its old format of announcing the winners of the awards during the playoffs.
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