Raptors coach Nick Nurse says Nets' Steve Nash showed 'composure and class'
Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant stands with head coach Steve Nash during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the New Orleans Pelicans at Barclays Center on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
How does a coach deal with a star player who wanted to have him fired in the offseason?
With “composure and class,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said when asked about what Nets coach Steve Nash went through this past summer.
Nurse said he had a lot of empathy for Nash and the position he found himself in when Kevin Durant asked Nets owner Joe Tsai to fire Nash and general manager Sean Marks.
“I’ve known him for a long time . . . and when it’s a guy you know, you always pay a little more attention when it’s someone you consider a friend,” Nurse said of Nash before his Raptors fell to the Nets, 109-105, on Friday night. “The job is hard, right? The profession is hard, and that stuff just makes it harder.
“I think he’s handled it with great composure and class and all that kind of stuff. And he’s still fighting.”
Nash survived Durant’s it’s-me-or-them ultimatum and continued to play down the offseason drama when asked by a Canadian reporter earlier in the week how he had dealt with it.
“I think from the outside, it can be such a hot think or issue and one can dramatize it,” Nash said. “From the inside, this stuff happens all the time throughout the league. We kind of have short memories and then we get into the next drama. For me, it’s always like this is part of the NBA. It happens all the time . . . [My attitude was] we need to sit down at some point. That’s kind of what happened.
“So there’s no baggage or remnants every day at work, if that makes sense. But I’m sure from the outside, people always wonder how. But that’s what it’s like in the NBA.”
Notes & quotes: Nash said Seth Curry (ankle) is progressing but still needs “a few more practices” before he is ready to play. He said Curry likely will join the Nets on their trip to Memphis and Milwaukee.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
