NBA: Ranking every active head coach by playing career

Every NBA head coach ranked by playing career: 13. Nick Nurse

Much like his former co-worker we just discussed, Nick Nurse played overseas after college in America. Nurse played at the University of Northern Iowa. He would move into the starting lineup by his senior season and is still the school’s all-time leading 3-point shooter by percentage (46.8 percent) which led to him going over to the British league to play professionally, though he stayed at UNI for one final season as a student assistant to finish his degree.

Getting the taste for coaching, Nurse took over as the player-coach for the Derby Rams for one season. Nurse quickly realized the taste was all he needed to develop a passion and moved on to coaching as his full-time career path.

He started his coaching-only career at Grand View University for two seasons before heading to the University of South Dakota as an assistant for two seasons. He honed his craft overseas, spending the better part of 11 years with the Birmingham Bullets, the Manchester Giants, the London Towers and the Brighton Bears of the British Basketball League and Telindus Oostende of the Belgium League.

Nick Nurse then took over in the D-League (eventually the G-League) with the Iowa Energy and Rio Grande Valley Vipers before becoming an assistant coach with the Toronto Raptors. After the departure of Dwane Casey, Nurse was the obvious successor.