4 great coaches the Cavaliers could hire to replace Bickerstaff

The Cavaliers could hire Nick Nurse as their new head coach

The Toronto Raptors replaced a successful coach in Dwane Casey, hiring Nick Nurse to replace him in 2018. The team also traded for Kawhi Leonard that same offseason, and together they led the Raptors to an NBA title in 2019, Nurse’s first season as head coach.

Nurse is known as a tactician, and he rolled out a variety of creative schemes to make it out of a tough Eastern Conference and to overcome Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors. He not only helped the growth of young players like Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam, but he also managed to mesh veterans like Leonard and Danny Green into what the Raptors had already built.

Nurse won 58 games in his first season and 53 in his second, but things have been shakier over the past few seasons. After going 23-12 in the playoffs those first two years, Nurse missed the playoffs his third year, then went 2-4 in a first-round exit last season. A middling year this season that will require a Play-In Tournament win just to make the playoffs could lead to Nurse being dismissed as coach.

There is no perfect coach on the market, and Nurse has struggled with some of the interpersonal dynamics of the role. With that being said, his tactical brilliance could take this Cavaliers’ core to a new level. The defensive schemes he could develop with a player like Evan Mobley are downright scary to consider, and offensively he will have on-ball creation the likes of which he has never seen in Toronto. Nurse has proven that he can take a great team all the way to a title, and the Cavs could use someone with that experience to get them to the finish line.