The Toronto Raptors and Chris Finch are finalizing a deal that will see him join Nick Nurse’s coaching staff, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
Widely regarded as one of the top offensive minds in the league, Finch has the credentials to be an NBA head coach, but remains, for the moment, one of its best assistants instead — something both Nurse, and certainly the Raptors, know all too well.
Finch’s history with Nurse is a long one, as the two have either been coaching with one another or against one another since the 1990s. That journey started in Europe, in the British Basketball League, and it saw Finch coaching Sheffield, while Nurse cycled through a number of teams. They both won multiple coach of the year awards, and battled against one another for about 12 years.
Following that, both men found their way into the D League, with Nurse being the first to make the move, coaching the Iowa Energy. Finch, who left Europe on the advice of Nurse, joined the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.
Eventually, Nurse replaced Finch as the head coach of the Vipers when the latter was promoted to the parent club as an assistant.
In 2012, Finch took on the role of head coach of the host team at the London Olympics, and brought on Nurse as part of his staff.
Since then, the two have spent much of their time coaching at the NBA level, with Nurse joining the Raptors in 2013 as an assistant under then-head coach Dwane Casey before eventually succeeding him in 2018, and Finch acting as an assistant with the Rockets, Denver Nuggets, and, most recently, New Orleans Pelicans.
