The Toronto Raptors and Chris Finch sign a deal that will transfer him to Nick Nurse’s coaching staff. based on Adrian Wojnarowski from ESPN.
Finch is widely recognized as one of the best attackers in the league. He’s qualified to be an NBA head coach but remains one of his best assistants for now – something both the Nurse and certainly the Raptors know well.
Finch’s history with Nurse is a long one, as the two have been training either with or against each other since the 1990s. That journey began in Europe, in the British Basketball League, and Finch coached Sheffield while Nurse drove through a number of teams. Both were named coach of the year several times and fought each other for about 12 years.
Then both men found their way into the D League, with Nurse making the move first and coaching Iowa Energy. Finch, who left Europe on the advice of the nurse, joined the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.
Eventually, Nurse replaced Finch as head coach for the Vipers when he was promoted to the parents’ club as an assistant.
In 2012, Finch took on the role of visiting team head coach at the London Olympics and hired Nurse as part of his workforce.
Since then, the two have spent much of their time coaching at the NBA level. Nurse joined the Raptors in 2013 as an assistant to then head coach Dwane Casey before taking over in 2018, and Finch as an assistant to the Rockets, Denver Nuggets and most recently New Orleans Pelicans.
