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What do you think of the fit? Assistant coach #1: “I don’t question anything about LeBron, and if he can lift the ceiling. I just question how quickly the coaches and the players are going to be able to figure this out. Jaylen has been in one place his whole career. Just trying to fit him in is going to be hard. This is a new experience for him. Sometimes, it’s not as easy as it seems to go out there and play basketball. I just think they’re going to have a lot to figure out. Embiid can’t move. He’s slow. He doesn’t play every game. He struggles to get up and down the floor. LeBron is older, too. Then you have two little speed guards. It’s a lot in the recipe. You throw it in the pot. That’s a lot to figure out. It’s hard coaching talent in the NBA, anyways. It’s such a delicate balance. Doing that on that scale and that level of attention and expectations, it’s a gift and a curse. I’m happy for Nick Nurse. At the same time, I’m scared for his health.”
Jeff Goodman: New Weber State coach Kaleb Canales is hiring Pat Zipfel as his associate head coach, he told @TheFieldOf68. Zipfel has been in the NBA for the last 25-plus years, the last 3 with the 76ers on Nick Nurse’s staff as advance scout. He’s regarded as one of the league’s best advance scouts. Canales and Zipfel have known one another for 20 years when they were with the Portland Trailblazers.
Channing Frye: "Nick Nurse, one thing that's not taking into consideration is Nick Nurse is a beast. And so when you add all these personalities to a team, Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, you know, Bron, VJ Edgecombe, you know, Jaylen Brown, you need a coach that can handle all that that's going to put them in the right situation. A lot of them, everyone's going to talk about usage rate, but Nick Nurse made it work in Toronto with, you know, OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam, Kyle Lowry and Kawhi Leonard."
"Ultimately, Philadelphia makes a move and then boom! Now you got Jaylen Brown," Paul said. "Now hold on, wait a minute now. This looks a lot different." Paul said James' close relationship with Tyrese Maxey, who also is represented by Klutch Sports, played an invaluable role in convincing the superstar that the transition to his new team will be smoother than it could be elsewhere. "I think he helps everybody on that team," Paul said. "When you talk about a secondary playmaker, if [James is] your secondary playmaker, you have the best secondary playmaker in the league. He helps Tyrese in terms of pick-and-roll action. ... I think Nick Nurse can take a little page out of Ty Lue's book and use Tyrese as the screener. When you talk about a guy like V.J. Edgecombe, he definitely helps him.
Like almost everyone else, though, Nurse was floored by Philly acquiring Jaylen Brown from the Boston Celtics. Nurse has spent his summer bracing for a roster with a suddenly higher floor and ceiling after the 76ers had 45 wins and the East’s No. 7 seed last season. More importantly, his preparation for coaching Brown may mirror his prep for Kawhi Leonard, who led the Nurse-coached Toronto Raptors to the 2019 NBA title. “My first thoughts are that I’ve had a lot of battles against him,” Nurse told a select group of reporters Saturday morning, referring to Brown. “You watch him get a lot better from year to year and how much harder it became to game plan for him and things like that. He’s won a lot. Obviously, he’s won a title and a finals MVP. I think he’s a two-way player, and I think he’s versatile. I think he’s right there, sitting in his prime. It’s amazing that he’s a Sixer.”
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Dave McMenamin: "Nick Nurse is a guy with a championship medal, and that is something LeBron certainly respects. Obviously, Nick Nurse is a Klutch client and so that means there is familiarity (...) There is a strong relationship between Tyrese Maxey and LeBron James. There are few players I have seen that LeBron talks about as glowingly as a player but as a person as he does about Tyrese. I am not saying that Tyrese is Steph Curry, Steph is in a class all his own, but there is an appeal there."
From a pure basketball standpoint, the 76ers can offer James a legitimate chance at a championship. The addition of Jaylen Brown increases their overall ceiling to the point of making a potential James addition the proverbial icing on the cake, rather than a true necessity. What Philadelphia offers beyond that is the chance for James to play with point guard Tyrese Maxey and under head coach Nick Nurse, who are both Klutch Sports clients. Maxey is someone James has long admired as a player and a person, and that admiration is mutual. But, contract-wise, the 76ers are down to handing out a veteran’s minimum. There are some things they can do with the roster to scratch out a bit more space, but it won’t be much.
Austin Krell: Nick Nurse on Daryl Morey's departure: "Obviously I really enjoyed working with Daryl. I really did day-to-day and all that kind of stuff was very enjoyable. But it's a decision that's been made and now we got to move on from it. I wish him the best. Always have a fondness for Daryl. But Mike's here and he's in charge now and my job is to get this team better every day and that's what we're going to do."
In the wake of Dallas moving on from Jason Kidd, there have been rumblings of both Duke's Jon Scheyer and Michigan's Dusty May being linked to the vacancy. But ever since Masai Ujiri was hired to run basketball operations last month, the belief around the league is that the most likely outcome for Dallas is elevating one of the NBA's rising assistants. That's what Ujiri did the other two times he hired a coach, both with the Toronto Raptors: In 2018, he replaced Dwane Casey with Nick Nurse. In 2023, he replaced Nurse with Darko Rajakovic.
Ultimately, whoever is hired will have to work with head coach Nick Nurse, who was retained. Nurse has two years left on his contract, league sources told HoopsHype. In addition, Bob Myers is expected to be involved in all major transactional decisions for the 76ers moving forward, even after a new basketball operations leader is hired.
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Ky Carlin: Josh Harris on the job Nick Nurse has done so far: “Look, I think Nick had the team played hard, and there were a lot of things that happened. I think we all saw where there were various rosters that were available and rosters that weren't available.” #Sixers
Shams Charania: Head coach Nick Nurse will continue in his role into a fourth season with the 76ers, sources tell ESPN. Four-time NBA championship architect Bob Myers, the president of sports for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, will be tasked to lead the search for the new head executive for the 76ers and he will oversee the franchise's basketball department in the interim.
That leaves the franchise facing uncomfortable questions and potentially major decisions. The jobs of Morey and head coach Nick Nurse are expected to be evaluated entering the offseason, multiple league sources told The Athletic. As of Sunday’s elimination, team sources said ownership has not made final decisions on either and is likely to take a few days to assess before making any major calls.
Derek Bodner: Nick Nurse, on VJ Edgecombe's rookie season: "That was a hell of an impressive rookie season. He's a hell of a player. It's not about shooting, scoring, jumping, all that stuff. He really knows how to play. He really has a leadership quality to him. I think he's a bigtime winner."