Birmingham is a city steeped in sporting history, and it’s important to always take note of the sporting accomplishments that the city can partly take responsibility for. The city’s football achievements are well documented, while athletes winning Olympic medals and jockeys winning prestigious races have also called Birmingham home. However, one unlikely NBA coach called the second city his home for two years during the 90s before winning the NBA Championship in 2019.
Nurse’s Career In Europe
Nick Nurse will be a name that is familiar to NBA fans, as he is the head coach of the Toronto Raptors. However, if it wasn’t for a ten-year stay in Europe, then it’s unlikely that he would have ever got the experience that he needed to land a job with one of the leading sides in the NBA. Nurse began his career in the East Midlands, as he played for one season with the Derby Rams. At this point, he realised that he wanted to stop playing the sport and pursue a full-time coaching career. His first six years of his career were spent in North America with Grand View and South Dakota before he decided to put the skills that he has learned to good use back in the British Basketball League with the Birmingham Bullets.
Basketball in the second city has been a sport that has failed to achieve the prominence that it deserves, with the Bullets eventually going into liquidation in 2006, which ended its 32-year history. Future teams were set up in the form of the Birmingham Panthers and Birmingham Knights, but neither were able to achieve prolonged success. However, looking back, it’s hard to determine what would have happened with Nurse’s career had he not spent two years in Birmingham with the Bullets between 1995 and 1997.
Birmingham Bullets 1995-97
Nurse took over the Bullets ahead of the 1995-96 season, as the team from the second city were looking to improve on the quarter-final defeat that they suffered in the previous season at the hands of the Sheffield Sharks. Nurse brought fresh ideas with him, and his plans worked almost immediately. The Bullets managed to finish in third place in the overall standings in the regular season, before they managed to ease past Derby Storm and Sheffield Sharks in the playoffs to set up a final with the league-leaders.
The Bulls were excellent in the 1995 playoff final, as they beat London Towers 78-72, with Nigel Lloyd scoring 23 points and Tony Dorsey adding 22. It would be one of two occasions that Nurse would win the BBL, with the other success coming with the Manchester Giants in 2000. He was unable to deliver back-to-back championships with the Bullets, as the Chester Jets in the quarter-finals of the following seasons playoffs beat them.
Success With The Raptors
However, without this spell in Birmingham, Nurse wouldn’t have got the tactical knowledge that later saw him excel at Iowa Energy and Rio Grande Valley Vipers, which led to him being named as the assistant coach at the Toronto Raptors. He held the assistance position for five seasons, before being promoted to head coach ahead of the 2018-19 NBA season.
That season would end with franchise-history, as the Raptors went on to win their first NBA Championship. Basketball fans across the globe have applauded Nurse’s coaching skills and ability to get the best out of his players, and he was named as the NBA Coach of the Year in 2020, as he led the Raptors to the semi-finals of the playoffs despite losing 2019 MVP, Kawhi Leonard.
