Speaker 1: This podcast is part of the seventy six ers podcast network,
Speaker 1: presented by Stern and Cohen Law Search seventy six ers Insiders,
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Nick Nurse, Welcome back. Great
Speaker 1: to see you. I wanted to ask you something about
Speaker 1: your book. You said that being a head coach is
Speaker 1: like being the leader of a jam band. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: because in a jam band situation or in an NBA situation,
Speaker 1: you're getting new players every day, people are moving in
Speaker 1: and out of the lineup, deal with injuries, replacements, etc.
Speaker 1: You're dealing with the whole new band. And you said
Speaker 1: that your priority is the leader of the band, is
Speaker 1: to make sure everyone knows the songs and everybody is comfortable.
Speaker 1: How do you teach the songs and how do you
Speaker 1: forge that comfort that foster that comfort?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: First of all, I'm never the leader of a jam band.
Speaker 3: I'm always a member of the jam band when we jam. Sure, Okay,
Speaker 3: But anyway, listen, I think that my job is obviously
Speaker 3: to get the vision for the season right and then
Speaker 3: trying to to know these guys as intimately as possible,
Speaker 3: and then it's to try to get them to perform
Speaker 3: at their best or maybe even better than they think
Speaker 3: they can, right, Like, the vision's got to be big
Speaker 3: and there's got to be a plan to put that
Speaker 3: all together.
Speaker 2: I do equate it to.
Speaker 3: The band, because let me now and then we're gonna
Speaker 3: leave some room for something spectacular like a solo or
Speaker 3: something like that. Right, So, I think the music sports
Speaker 3: analogy is a good one.
Speaker 1: Comfort among the group is something you pointed out as well.
Speaker 1: How do you foster that when you don't have a
Speaker 1: ton of time to get to know a new group
Speaker 1: of players.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I've tried to spend a lot of my
Speaker 3: summer getting to know them, right, I think, as any
Speaker 3: probably most coaches, as soon as they get the job,
Speaker 3: I went around to see everybody face to face, right,
Speaker 3: and then I obviously see some of them in Vegas,
Speaker 3: and then we have voluntary workouts in LA and then
Speaker 3: we have.
Speaker 2: The fall workouts.
Speaker 3: So just just trying to stay in touch with them
Speaker 3: and try to get them on the floor, get in
Speaker 3: the gym with them, watch them, film with them, whatever
Speaker 3: it is, and use some of that time to get
Speaker 3: to know them. And I think it's really important for
Speaker 3: anybody taking over a new team.
Speaker 1: Since we last spoke, you assembled a staff, yes, and
Speaker 1: something specific I wanted to ask you about what's it
Speaker 1: like to have people on your staff that are growing
Speaker 1: as coaches who you once coached as players. For those
Speaker 1: who don't know, you coached thirty years before becoming a
Speaker 1: head coach and along some of those stops. Now are
Speaker 1: people on your staff here at the Sixers.
Speaker 3: What's that like, Well, it's great, I think it's I
Speaker 3: think you know, you develop those relationships and most of
Speaker 3: those guys were amazing players and you know, or teammates
Speaker 3: or leaders or just a combination of all.
Speaker 2: That stuff, and it's great to see.
Speaker 3: Them have such good careers and then it's time to
Speaker 3: move on to the next phase of their life and
Speaker 3: that's in coaching. And again, most of those guys are
Speaker 3: all tremendous leaders I got I would say like the
Speaker 3: one commonality in my staff because there's a lot of winners.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of winners on the staff, either as
Speaker 3: players or coaches. A lot of G League or D
Speaker 3: League championships in that coaching room as well. And again
Speaker 3: that's probably biased on my part because it's kind of
Speaker 3: the path I took trying to figure out how to
Speaker 3: do this job.
Speaker 2: To the best of our ability, and so have a
Speaker 2: lot of our assistants.
Speaker 1: Speaking of winning, you guys had the better of now
Speaker 1: you guys in Toronto in twenty nineteen, and I went
Speaker 1: back and I watched Kawhi's shot, and I watched you
Speaker 1: the way you were crouched watching you exclaimed right away
Speaker 1: when the shot went in, you like had a big
Speaker 1: gesture and then immediately you drew it in and you
Speaker 1: walked to the scorer's table. How important is that ability
Speaker 1: to regulate your own emotion in your job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's good. I haven't thought about that.
Speaker 3: I just remember that I immediately was going to find
Speaker 3: Brett Brown to tell him, you know, like that was
Speaker 3: an unbelievable, like iconic series, right, And I just wanted
Speaker 3: to give him the respect that he deserved there because
Speaker 3: it was. It was an awesome series. One for the ages.
Speaker 3: We're all still talking about it for sure, right. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's important. I mean I felt pretty good about that
Speaker 3: whole situation, to be honest with Yeah, I thought, even
Speaker 3: if it didn't go in, we'd go to overtime and
Speaker 3: we were gonna be just fine.
Speaker 2: So I was happy went in, as you saw.
Speaker 3: But and then I kind of thought, let's get to
Speaker 3: work for the next series as well.
Speaker 1: A mantra that you brought to Toronto before that I
Speaker 1: understand was expect to win. It's something that's now plastered
Speaker 1: in the building here. I see you're wearing the bracelet.
Speaker 1: But you started expect to win, if I'm not mistaken
Speaker 1: in Birmingham, and that was an organization that needed like
Speaker 1: a huge reva. Right, So when you think about I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I should have Birmingham, England. So when you think about
Speaker 1: the journey that you've gone on with expect to win,
Speaker 1: why is it so important for you to bring it here?
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's just kind of theo. Right.
Speaker 3: It did start in Birmingham. It was kind of my
Speaker 3: first professional coaching job. I think I was twenty eight
Speaker 3: years old, so almost thirty years ago. Just again, a
Speaker 3: lot of the things that end up happening or are
Speaker 3: created by necessity, and I just felt like that organization
Speaker 3: at the time needed like a shift in this like
Speaker 3: how we're seeing things and just kind of stayed with me.
Speaker 2: And again, my background of coaching a lot in.
Speaker 3: Like the what you call the backwaters of basketball, maybe
Speaker 3: England and Belgium and Texas and Oklahoma and all these
Speaker 3: places that iow, all these places I've been.
Speaker 2: A lot of things.
Speaker 3: Happen, right, the bus breaks down, Well, what are we
Speaker 3: not gonna expect to win?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: Guys get called up, Three guys get called up right
Speaker 3: before the game. Well, you know it's kind of you
Speaker 3: get thrown in so many situations. You didn't really have
Speaker 3: much choice other than to get your mind right and
Speaker 3: try to figure it out. Let's get a game plan,
Speaker 3: let's play hard, and let's figure out there's got to
Speaker 3: be a way to do it. And I think that's
Speaker 3: the mindset that again, my background and training.
Speaker 1: Is provided the same background that led you to have
Speaker 1: overlap with some coaches. You've had overlap with some players
Speaker 1: on this team. I just talked to pat Patrick Beverley
Speaker 1: about your very brief overlap Ario grand Valley, someone you
Speaker 1: had a more notorious overlap with with Danny Green in
Speaker 1: Toronto the year that you guys won, And when I
Speaker 1: sat down with him, he said that you are the
Speaker 1: biggest reason why he wanted to be a seventy.
Speaker 2: Six er this year.
Speaker 1: What do those words mean to hear from a player
Speaker 1: that's had a lot of success.
Speaker 2: Well, I could just throw the bounce pass right back
Speaker 2: at him.
Speaker 3: I mean, he was a really integral part of that
Speaker 3: culture and that expect to win.
Speaker 2: I mean, he just he just embodies it.
Speaker 3: I mean, jeez, look, he's won three titles and a
Speaker 3: fourth if you want to count the NCAA title too,
Speaker 3: and he brings that like mentality of and in a
Speaker 3: positive way like that, I know how to win. I've
Speaker 3: done it, and here's here's how we're going to do
Speaker 3: it without being soverbearing. He's such a key ingredient and
Speaker 3: key member to the team. Now, Danny was just a good,
Speaker 3: solid player. He shot the three, fit really good with us,
Speaker 3: He was great in the locker room. He understands defensive schemes,
Speaker 3: all those things. So let's see how he's doing. The
Speaker 3: health thing for him has been We've gotten a really
Speaker 3: good report, like really positive. So let's hope that continues
Speaker 3: and he can be an integral part of this team.
Speaker 1: Something that stood out to me again, back from the book,
Speaker 1: you talked about how you like aesthetically pleasing basketball. What
Speaker 1: do you find about this seventy six ers team as
Speaker 1: it's composed today most aesthetically pleasing.
Speaker 3: I'm not quite sure on that. Yet what I do
Speaker 3: know is that they're very hard. They were very hard
Speaker 3: to compete against. Right, there's so many different things of
Speaker 3: like almost like just start with Tyres and Joel, Like,
Speaker 3: first of all, you got this big, huge, biggest guy
Speaker 3: in the league.
Speaker 2: You got to try to fend.
Speaker 3: Then you've got literally the fastest or one of the fastest,
Speaker 3: you know, I think really close. And that's like such
Speaker 3: a wide range of things that you have to see.
Speaker 2: But that's that's probably it.
Speaker 3: I think there's there's so much variety on the team
Speaker 3: everything in between there that it makes it super interesting
Speaker 3: to watch.
Speaker 1: Last question for you, let's think back to that young
Speaker 1: coach in Birmingham, England, or even before that as a
Speaker 1: player coach. Knowing now what your journey has looked like
Speaker 1: in the thirty plus years as a coach that's that
Speaker 1: have transpired, what advice would you give to young Nick
Speaker 1: Nurse fresh out of college.
Speaker 3: I'll give young Nick Nurse the same advice I give
Speaker 3: a lot of young coaches that ask me for advice,
Speaker 3: just to say, don't take my path.
Speaker 2: My bad was all over the place. Not that's not true.
Speaker 3: I just you know what I like at a very
Speaker 3: young age, I wanted to coach, and I really had
Speaker 3: to see if I was any good at it.
Speaker 2: That's kind of partly where I took.
Speaker 3: A college job at twenty three, in a pro job
Speaker 3: at like twenty.
Speaker 2: Seven, I just had to. Like I had all these ideas,
Speaker 2: I just had to take.
Speaker 3: Them, take them somewhere, and I took them some funny places,
Speaker 3: but at least I was able to get them out
Speaker 3: and try them.
Speaker 2: And here we are today, well.
Speaker 1: The city and your players are excited to see how
Speaker 1: you apply those ideas here. So thank you so much.
Speaker 3: We're looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me