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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO – With much of the NBA community converging on Las Vegas for a USA Basketball minicamp in late-July, Nick Nurse sat in the lobby bar of the Encore hotel and contemplated the unique challenge ahead of him.

He was about a month into his tenure as head coach of the Toronto Raptors and had just learned he would be inheriting one of the league’s best and most enigmatic players in Kawhi Leonard.

It’s almost unheard of for a first-year head coach to be given the keys to a team with championship aspirations – a blessing or a curse, depending on how you look at it.

The Raptors were already really good. They were coming off a franchise record 59-win season and first-place finish in the Eastern Conference, yet they fired their coach in part because really good was no longer good enough. The bar had been set high and passing it would not be easy.

If Nurse was feeling the pressure he didn’t show it in that moment. The 51-year-old Iowan projected a calmness and quiet confidence that his players would come to know and respect.

In an exclusive interview, his first since he got the job, Nurse told TSN that every decision he and the organization would go on to make – both big and small – would come with the end goal in mind. His message: don’t judge me, the Leonard trade, or the team until the time of the year that matters most, the playoffs.

“It’s the position I’ve been put in. It’s the position the organization is in,” he had said. “Trying to figure out if this trade was good by Dec. 1 would be like trying to figure out if the Raptors are good enough by Dec. 1, even if we didn’t do the trade. We’d all be wasting our time because you guys would be saying the same thing: ‘Well they were this good the last few years on Dec. 1 so why are we talking about this [now]?’

“My job is to coach the team and get them to play the best they can come April, May and June.”

That time has come.

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It’s not that Nurse was diminishing the importance of the regular season. The Raptors needed it more than most teams, even if they would have happily shortened it by a month or two.

For the first time in seven seasons they were entering training camp with a new core of players. For the first time in eight years they were doing so with a different head coach. Two of the organization’s most prominent and longest-tenured figures, Dwane Casey and DeMar DeRozan, were gone. Enter Nurse, Leonard and Danny Green.

Then, a midseason shakeup would see three rotation players (Jonas Valanciunas, Delon Wright and C.J. Miles) exchanged for one, Marc Gasol. After years of leaning on continuity, the foundation had been rocked and Nurse was tasked with putting the pieces together in time for the playoffs.

By his own admission, it wasn’t always pretty. Chemistry between the team’s two best players, Leonard and Kyle Lowry, proved to be a work in progress and may still be. Toronto’s all-star duo played just 43 games together and never more than five consecutively.

Thanks to a barrage of injuries, Leonard’s frequent rest nights and Nurse’s tendency to tinker, the Raptors used 22 different starting lineups, 10 more than last season. As promised, Nurse experimented with his rotation to see what worked and, often glaringly, what did not.

For better or for worse, they believe it all helped them to prepare. The playoffs are anything but predictable, especially if you go as far as Toronto is hoping to. There will be unexpected bumps along the way.

At least to this point, that’s where Nurse has thrived most as an NBA head coach. His background leading teams around the world and in the NBA Development League readied him for the job in some respects, but he’s never had to manage this level of talent or the egos that come it.

That was the biggest question upon hearing of his promotion. How would he fare off the court and away from the clipboard? Could he keep an NBA locker room from fracturing, particularly one that seemed so tenuous heading into training camp?

This season could have been a tense and awkward one for the Raptors if they allowed it to be. Leonard’s load management was an unprecedented method that could have created animosity between him and his teammates. Lowry’s initial disapproval of the trade that separated him from his best friend could have caused dissention. Convincing veterans like Serge Ibaka, Valanciunas and then Gasol to buy into new roles off the bench could have been a tough sell.

All the while, Leonard’s impending free agency has been hanging over them like a dark cloud. The combustibility potential was high and very real.

Instead, they stayed together in the interest of the common goal. If there was any drama or in-fighting it was kept behind closed doors and resolved quickly. While some in the organization were walking on eggshells, especially around Leonard, the tension never seemed to infiltrate the locker room, where Nurse has kept things loose. His relaxed, albeit direct and straightforward, approach jives with this group of vets.

The addition of Leonard has also worked out about as well as – and perhaps better than – anybody could have expected. He showed up. He’s been healthy. He’s cooperated and played nice with the media. He’s been a good solider.

He’s also missed games for load management and played some on cruise control, pacing himself for the playoffs. Now he’ll have to prove the end justifies the means. This is when the trade is really supposed to pay dividends.

Finishing the regular season with the NBA’s second-best record at 58-24 – one win shy of last year’s mark – is commendable, but it doesn’t mean a whole lot if you can’t back it up in the playoffs. Few teams understand that as well as Toronto does.

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This is the real test, not only for Nurse and Leonard, but for Raptors president Masai Ujiri and this team he’s built – somewhat controversially.

Firing Casey, the club’s winningest coach, was not a unanimously popular decision amongst the fan base and neither was replacing him with his long-time assistant. Trading DeRozan, the beloved former fame of the franchise, for a disgruntled star coming off a serious injury wasn’t without risk. For Ujiri, it was a risk worth taking.

Despite taking three kicks at the can, the Raptors couldn’t get past LeBron James. Whether he was too great an obstacle or they simply weren’t good enough no longer matters. LeBron is gone – out of the East and, now, out of the playoffs altogether – and with him, so is the excuse.

The conference is not a cakewalk by any means. Giannis Antetokounmpo has arguably dethroned The King as the NBA’s most intimidating player and his league-best Milwaukee Bucks are a formidable opponent. So too are Joel Embiid’s Philadelphia 76ers – who Toronto will likely see in the second round – and Kyrie Irving’s Boston Celtics.

At the same time, this is the best Raptors team ever assembled and, perhaps most importantly, it’s a different Raptors team. They’re not burdened with the sins of years past. Leonard couldn’t tell you what Toronto’s playoff record is against Cleveland (2-12). Gasol doesn’t care how many times the Raps have been swept out of the postseason (three of the last four years). They have the opportunity to write their own narrative.

There’s little doubt this is the most important playoff run in the 24-year history of the Toronto Raptors franchise. The question is, are they ready for it?​