NEW YORK (AFP) – Nick Nurse, who guided the Toronto Raptors to the 2019 NBA title, has agreed to become the new coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, ESPN reported on Monday.
Nurse and the Raptors split in April after his fifth season guiding the Canadian club, which included him winning the NBA Coach of the Year award in 2020.
According to the report, which cited unnamed sources, Nurse will take over a Sixers squad that pushed Boston to seven games before losing in the Eastern Conference semi-finals, which prompted the firing of coach Doc Rivers earlier this month.
The 76ers had lost in the same round of the playoffs three consecutive seasons under Rivers.
Philadelphia last won the NBA title in 1983 but the Sixers have NBA Most Valuable Player and scoring leader Joel Embiid of Cameroon and star guard James Harden as they try to reach the NBA Finals for the first time since 2001.
Nurse and 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey know each other from Nurse’s two seasons coaching the top development club of the Houston Rockets while Morey was general manager of the Rockets.
