Mike Budenholzer, who agreed tonight to be the Bucks’ next head coach, was also the Raptors’ top choice, tweets Michael Grange of Rogers Sportsnet. Budenholzer met with Toronto’s front office on Monday, but no job offer was extended, relays ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
Assistant coach Nick Nurse appears to be the current front-runner for the Raptors’ job, according to Josh Lewenberg of TSN Sports (Twitter link). Nurse has spent the past five seasons as part of former coach Dwane Casey’s staff.
Lewenberg describes him as a “forward, innovative thinker,” which is an important quality to the Toronto front office (Twitter link). He adds that there’s a good chance someone else will hire Nurse if the Raptors don’t make him their head coach.
Toronto seems very focused on internal candidates, Lewenberg notes, as fellow assistant Rex Kalamian is being considered for the opening, along with Jerry Stackhouse, head coach of Raptors 905 in the G League (Twitter link). Other than Budenholzer, no one from outside the organization has interviewed for the position.
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Usually when someone is your top choice you actually offer them something.
I don’t think any coach wants to coach a team with Kyle Lowry as the starting guard.
Kyle Lowry is way better than DeRozan
Formerlyz is right. Metrics even back that up. Lowry is more important to the team than DeRozan. Maybe they find a trade partner with a starving team.
Why would Mike want to coach Kyle Brownie and DeMar Defrozen when he can coach Giannis,Middleton,Maker,and Brogdon?
Totally Milwaukee sounds way better proposition, not even need to think about it, the Bucks have some future if they can keep the core together. Toronto, well….
Bud has seen this before. Atlanta was where the Raptors were. With the Bucks he has upside. Raptors are in dwarf star mode.