Ex-Raptors’ head coach Nick Nurse finds a new home in Philadelphia

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Nick Nurse and his staff were once the braintrust that stopped the Sixers and Joel Embiid.

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Now the Philadelphia 76ers are looking to Nurse to take Embiid and the Sixers to the promised land.

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A day after the Milwaukee Bucks opted for Raptors assistant Adrian Griffin when former Raptors head coach Nurse removed his name from the running, it was Nurse’s turn to own the NBA news cycle with the 76ers naming Nurse head coach replacing the fired Doc Rivers.

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After laying the groundwork for his own departure from Toronto with a strangely timed and mostly unprompted discussion of his future as Toronto’s head coach 10 days before the end of the regular schedule had even arrived, Nurse now takes on the task of solving Philadelphia’s 40-year championship drought.

It’s not like the Sixers haven’t had the talent. But even with a maturing Embiid coming off his first NBA MVP award along with former MVP James Harden and a supporting cast that including Tobias Harris, Tyrese Maxey, and P.J. Tucker, the Sixers were unable to get by the Eastern Conference semifinal for the third consecutive year under Rivers’ watch.

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Nurse, whose unprompted personal crisis 10 days before the season ended actually occurred in Philadelphia, brings with him a championship ring courtesy of his first year as the Raptors head coach, an NBA coach of the year award the following year and the best win percentage among head coaches in Raptors’ franchise history.

The combination of Griffin in Milwaukee and Nurse in Philadelphia means there’s a lot of inside Raptors’ intel floating around the Eastern Conference right now.

Nurse, though, arrives with growing concerns that Harden is on his way out.

There has been plenty of speculation of a return to Houston for the one-time Rocket and that would certainly leave a hole in Philadelphia’s lineup.

Meanwhile the Toronto search for Nurse’s replacement remains ongoing.

The team is believed to be nearing the shortlist segment of the process with the list whittled down to a more manageable number and second interviews in the near future.

Monty Williams, former head coach in Phoenix and Kenny Atkinson, the one-time Brooklyn head coach and more recently an assistant on Steve Kerr’s staff in Golden State are considered strong possibilities to be among that group.