Ex-Raptors coach Nurse using Siakam's growth as blueprint for 76ers players
Nick Nurse may no longer be coaching the Toronto Raptors, but it’s clear he’s still being influenced by his decade with the organization.
In an interview with USA Today’s Ky Carlin, one of Nurse’s players in his new coaching gig with the Philadelphia 76ers — backup centre Paul Reed — stated that he’s been instructed to try to model his own development after Raptors forward Pascal Siakam.
“I’ve talked to him plenty of times and it’s always been kind of the same kind of idea,” Reed told Carlin about his conversations with Nurse. “He talked about moulding me into a Pascal Siakam-type player. Somebody who can kind of do it all. Shoot the ball, drive, pass, but right it’s all about focusing on my shot mechanics. That’s the start. That’s where it starts at.”
A first-round pick of Toronto in the 2016 draft, Siakam has spent his entire professional career with the organization. He’s put up over 21 points per game in each of the last four seasons, averaging 24.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 5.8 assists in 71 games last season.
Siakam first rose to prominence in the 2018-19 season, where he won both the NBA’s Most Improved Player award as well as the 2019 NBA title with Toronto, so it’s no wonder why Nurse would want his players to emulate that sort of development plan.
Of course, it’s easier said than done to develop from a bench player into an NBA star, and Reed will have quite the challenge to follow in Siakam’s footsteps.
Last season, he averaged just 10.9 minutes per game with the 76ers with coach Doc Rivers, playing 745 of his 755 minutes without 2022-23 NBA MVP Joel Embiid on the floor. Across three seasons with Philadelphia, Reed has averaged 3.7 points and 3.1 rebounds in 133 regular-season games.
At the very least, it’ll be interesting to see how Nurse’s coaching tactics translate to a 76ers franchise clearly in win-now mode, and if his development skills work in a similar fashion as they were able to through his first few seasons in Toronto.
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