If you are looking for certainty, predictability and things that unfold according to widely agreed-upon standards and practices, don’t become an NBA head coach.
Maybe try something like accounting.
Of course Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse already tried that.
That was his major at Northern Iowa University, and he gave it up to become a 23-year-old playing coach for the Derby Rams in the British Basketball League for the 1990-91 season.
His only regret, he would tell you, is that he didn’t choose to ‘waste’ an easier degree.
Nearly 30 years later, Nurse is still dealing with the uncertainties that being a professional basketball coach brings, although the pay days are better in the NBA and he’s flying private rather than driving the van.
But the day-to-day is the same in that it’s always different. Plan carefully and then make it up as you go along. The Raptors’ defence of their 2019 title is like every other season that way.
“The circumstances are we have a lot of new guys, we have a lot injuries and lot of starting lineups,” said Nurse after the Raptors practised Friday at the OVO Athletic Centre. “There’s been all kinds of stuff [this year]. The roller-coaster has been a little bumpier, right? But it was still a roller-coaster last year and you know it’s coming and you ride the ups and downs and try to have fun.”
So far so good as the Raptors remain on pace for a 54-win regular season even as they lead the NBA in Win Shares lost to injury, according to mangameslost.com and are third in total man games lost to injury.
The news Friday is that Nurse and the Raptors are on the verge of getting some of their most important players back to full health, which – barring another nearly unprecedented wave of injuries hitting the team – could mark the first time this season the defending champion Raptors operate at anything approaching full health.
Nurse confirmed that Norman Powell (shoulder) will be back in the lineup Sunday against the visiting San Antonio Spurs after missing 11 games with a partially dislocated shoulder.
Both Pascal Siakam (groin) and Marc Gasol (hamstring) did ‘semi-live’ work at practice Friday. There is a possibility — after another day of practice scheduled for Saturday — that they might be available for Sunday although Nurse cautioned that timeline “might be a bit ambitious.”
Also Fred VanVleet (hamstring) remains out with no projected return date, so there’s always something.
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Siakam was still sounding cautious in his first public comments since getting hurt in the closing minutes of a game against the Detroit Pistons on Dec. 3.
“The most important thing for me was being able to see if I can be explosive and move laterally,” said Siakam, who leads the Raptors in scoring with 25.1 points per game. “I can definitely run straight on the floor, but the problem is figuring out if you can move and be explosive. I have to make sure I can be 100 per cent and do everything I’m capable of doing and everything that helps my game. Until I feel like that, we’re going to take our time with it.
Nurse has been the constant and, in a roundabout way, the beneficiary of his team’s constant health-related upheaval. The Raptors have managed to remain in the mix for a top-four seed in the East by playing an aggressive, ever-changing defence that has allowed them to remain among the best defensive teams in the league.
Coaches finding a way to win with patchwork rosters get people’s attention, particularly when they are coming off a championship.
Nurse has almost certainly worked his way to the forefront of Coach of the Year discussion should the Raptors manage to keep winning, regardless of circumstance.
It’s not easy. Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers was lamenting last week about how difficult it has been to create any consistency while ‘load managing’ former Raptor Kawhi Leonard. The deep and experienced Clippers – widely picked as the championship favourite before the season started – are only 5-5 in the 10 games Leonard has sat out.
The Raptors went 17-5 with Leonard out of the lineup last season.
As the Raptors’ herky-jerky season has rolled along, Nurse has been unwilling to make or accept excuses and has proven willing to hold his players to a high standard, regardless of status.
Last season he called out Leonard for coasting at one point during the season. Earlier this year he made clear Siakam needed to “be smarter” about picking up fouls and making too many turnovers as the focal point of the Raptors’ offence. Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Chris Boucher and Stanley Johnson have all heard Nurse be frank about shortcomings in their play. The results have been good and have arrived in short order, in part because to the extent you can be in Nurse’s ‘bad books’ he’s willing to turn the page quickly.
The latest example is rookie Terence Davis. He played eight inconsequential minutes in the Raptors loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday and, when asked, Nurse said he had played him “five minutes too many.”
Davis got his first NBA start the next night against the Charlotte Hornets and responded with 23 points and 11 rebounds – both career highs.
“Sometimes I’m maybe a little too forthright or pissed off or whatever it is,” Nurse said. “Somebody says ‘Why didn’t you play him more?’ and I thought the question should have been ‘Why did you play him so much?’ I don’t know. There are lots of ways of communication. Lots of ways of getting your message across. We’ll explore all those options until we can hopefully help these guys. Like I said, it’s only for their best interest and the best interest of our team.
“I don’t know if there’s an art to [calling players out] but I think if there’s a problem it has to be communicated. If there’s a problem, there has to be a solution.”
The Raptors should gradually have a good measure of their problems solved in the coming week as they get key pieces back and healthy.
That they’ve made it this far in one piece is as good an example as any why the Raptors should be grateful Nurse didn’t opt for something more certain than coaching. An accountant couldn’t balance the injury-riddled club’s fortunes any better.
TORONTO – The Toronto Maple Leafs have announced cookie brand Oreo as the team’s helmet sponsor for the upcoming NHL season.
The new helmet will debut Sunday when Toronto opens its 2024-25 pre-season against the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Arena.
The Oreo logo replaces Canadian restaurant chain Pizza Pizza, which was the Leafs’ helmet sponsor last season.
Previously, social media platform TikTok sponsored Toronto starting in the 2021-22 regular season when the league began allowing teams to sell advertising space on helmets.
The Oreo cookie consists of two chocolate biscuits around a white icing filling and is often dipped in milk.
Fittingly, the Leafs wear the Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s “Milk” logo on their jerseys.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
MacKenzie Weegar wasn’t bitter or upset as he watched friends live out their dreams.
The Calgary Flames defenceman just hopes to experience the same feeling one day. He also knows the road leading to that moment, if it does arrive, will likely be long and winding — much like his own path.
A seventh-round pick by the Florida Panthers at the 2013 NHL draft, Weegar climbed the ranks to become an important piece of a roster that captured the Presidents’ Trophy as the league’s top regular-season club in 2021-22.
Two months later following a second-round playoff exit, he was traded to the Flames along with Jonathan Huberdeau for Matthew Tkachuk. And less than two years after that, the Panthers were hoisting the Stanley Cup.
“Happy for the city and for the team,” Weegar said of Florida’s June victory over the Edmonton Oilers. “There was no bad taste in my mouth.”
His sole focus, he insists, is squarely on eventually getting the Flames to the same spot. The landscape, however, has changed drastically since Weegar committed to Calgary on an eight-year, US$50-million contract extension in October 2022.
Weegar has watched a list that includes goaltender Jacob Markstrom, defencemen Chris Tanev, Noah Hanifin and Nikita Zadorov and forwards Elias Lindholm and Andrew Mangiapane shipped out of town since the start of last season — largely for picks, prospects and young players as part of a rebuild.
Despite that exodus, he remains committed to the Calgary project steered by general manager Craig Conroy.
“It’s easy to get out of all whack when you see guys trying to leave or wanting new contracts,” the 30-year-old from Ottawa said at last week’s NHL/NHLPA player media tour in Las Vegas. “I just focus on where I am and where I want to be, and that’s Calgary.
“I believe in this team. The city has taken me in right away. I feel like I owe it to them to stick around and grind through these years and get a Stanley Cup.”
The hard-nosed blueliner certainly knows what it is to grind.
After winning the Memorial Cup alongside Nathan MacKinnon with the Halifax Mooseheads in 2013, Weegar toiled in the ECHL and American Hockey League for three seasons before making his NHL debut late in the 2016-17 campaign with the Panthers.
He would spend the next five years in South Florida as one of the players tasked with shifting an organizational culture that had experienced little success over the previous two decades.
“There’s always going to be a piece of my heart and loyalty to that team,” Weegar said. “But now I’m in a different situation … I compete against all 32 teams, not just Florida. There’s always a chip on my shoulder every single year.”
Weegar set career highs with 20 goals — eight was the most he had ever previously registered — and 52 points in 2023-24 as part of a breakout offensive performance.
“I think my buddies cared a lot more than I did,” he said with a smile. “All I hear is, ‘fantasy, fantasy, fantasy.'”
Weegar was actually more proud of his 200 blocked shots and 194 hits as he looks to help set a new Flames’ standard alongside Huberdeau, captain Mikael Backlund, Nazem Kadri, Blake Coleman and Rasmus Andersson for a franchise expected to have its new arena in time for the 2027-28 season.
“You have to build that culture and that belief in the locker room,” said Weegar, who pointed to 22-year-old centre Connor Zary as a player set to pop. “Those young guys are going to have to come into their own and be consistent every night … they’re the next generation.”
Weegar, however, isn’t punting on 2024-25. He pointed to the NHL’s parity and the fact a couple of teams surprise every season.
It’s the same approach that took him from the ECHL a decade ago to hockey’s premier pre-season event inside a swanky hotel on Sin City’s famed strip, where he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the game’s best.
“From the outside — media and even friends and family — the expectations are probably a bit lower,” Weegar said of Calgary’s outlook. “But there’s no reason to think that we can’t make playoffs and we can’t be a good team (with) that underdog mentality.
“You never know.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept 17, 2024.
Jose Maria Celestino da Costa was named vice-president and head of soccer operations while Marianne Brooks was appointed vice-president of partnerships, Kelly Shouldice as vice-president of brand and content and Joyce Sou as vice-president of finance and business operations.
The new six-team women’s pro league is set to kick off in April.
“Their unique expertise and leadership are crucial as we lay the foundation for not just a successful league in Canada, but one that stands among the top sports leagues in the world,” NSL president Christina Litz said in a statement. “By investing in top-tier talent and infrastructure, the Northern Super League is committed to creating a league that will elevate the game and set new standards for women’s professional soccer globally.”
Da Costa will oversee all on-field matters, including officiating. His resume includes stints with Estoril Praia, a men’s first-division team in Portugal, and the Portuguese Soccer Federation, where he helped develop the Portuguese women’s league.
Brooks spent a decade with Canucks Sports & Entertainment, working in “partnership sales and retention efforts” for the Vancouver Canucks, Vancouver Warriors, and Rogers Arena. Most recently, she served as senior director of account management at StellarAlgo, a software company that helps pro sports teams connect with their fans
Shouldice has worked for Corus Entertainment, the Canadian Football League, and most recently as vice-president of Content and Communications at True North Sports & Entertainment, where she managed original content as well as business and hockey communications.
Sou, who was involved in the league’s initial launch, will oversee financial planning, analysis and the league’s expansion strategy in her new role.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
