Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse wins the 2019-20 NBA Coach of the Year award.
Nurse becomes the first to earn Coach of the Year honours in both the NBA and the NBA G League (2010-11, Iowa Energy).
From a global panel of 100 sportswriters and broadcasters, Nurse received 90 first-place votes, earning a total of 470 points. In second place was Milwaukee Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer (147 points; five first-place votes) with Oklahoma City Thunder’s Billy Donovan finishing in third place (134 points; four-first place votes).
Voting was based on the games prior to March 11, when the NBA suspended its season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After winning an NBA Championship in the 2018-19 season, Nurse led the Raptors to the second-best record in the Eastern Conference and the third-best in the NBA (46-18, .719).
https://twitter.com/NBAonTNT/status/1297220048260481024
This is after Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green departed the Raptors for the Los Angeles Clippers and Lakers respectively. The Raptors dealt with their share of injuries this season, including a 28 game absence for former Defensive Player of the Year Marc Gasol.
Nurse became the head coach in June 2018 after being an assistant with the Raptors for five seasons. He joins Sam Mitchell (2006-07) and Dwane Casey (2017-18) as the only Raptors coaches to win Coach of the Year in the franchise’s history.
