Raptors’ Lowry assumes ‘de facto’ coaching role with Nurse sidelined

Rules ruin everything.

When the news broke early Friday afternoon that six members of the Toronto Raptors coaching staff — head coach Nick Nurse and just about all of his staff — were being held out from Friday’s night’s game against the Houston Rockets due to health and safety protocols related to COVID-19 testing, the first thing that leapt to mind was: Who was going to coach this team in their game Friday night against the Houston Rockets?

Natural reaction, right? Well maybe the very first thought should have been: Let’s hope all involved remain sound and healthy and the exposure throughout the staff and the team can be easily contained.

But that aside, it was back to who is going to coach, and please, please, please let it be Kyle Lowry.

What could be more perfect? The Raptors franchise player has largely shed the reputation that followed him early in his career that he was to coaches what sun is to soft ice cream — a bright light that could make things messy.

But as he matured the reason he was a challenge to coach remained. Lowry has been a high IQ player since he stepped into the NBA, and if he thought he knew better it was hard to contain himself, and he thought he knew better a lot.

It’s not all that unusual. There aren’t too many shrinking violets playing point guard in the most competitive basketball league in the world.

It’s just that early in his career Lowry had a hard time sharing his views diplomatically.

“When I was younger, I knew what I knew, but the emotional side would kind of get in the way and people wouldn’t listen to me,” was how Lowry explained it to me once.

And imagine how Lowry took that?

Those issues are in the past now. Part of being a franchise player is having the ear of the head coach and Nurse and Lowry relate more like partners or co-workers rather than boss and subordinate. They are two smart basketball minds that work — mostly — as one.

But imagine Lowry actually coaching? Drawing up plays in timeouts? Adjusting to match-ups on the fly? Refusing to sub himself out even with body parts showing through his skin? Sitting guys for not taking charges?

That seemed to almost be on the horizon given the Raptors’ sudden lack of options.

But alas, rules.

According to Raptors general manager Bobby Webster it is a technicality within the league’s collective bargaining agreement that would have prevented Lowry from becoming the NBA’s first player-coach since Dave Cowens did it for the Boston Celtics for part of the 1978-79 season.

“I don’t know if we have the budget to add that to his resume. I think there was probably some additional compensation,” joked Webster.

But seriously. It’s against the rules.

“You can’t really pay a player to do anything outside of his contract,” said Webster.

And how much does that suck, at least in this case?

Plan B for the Raptors turned out to be a pretty good one. Raptors assistant coach Sergio Scariolo has three European titles, two Olympic medals and a World Championship on his resume in his role as the head coach for the Spanish national team. This is his third year as an assistant to Nurse with the Raptors.

Luckily for the Raptors — as it turns out — Scariolo had been in quarantine in Tampa for the past week after returning from Poland where he coached Spain in FIBA qualifying. He was conveniently due to finish quarantine Friday morning and thus wasn’t included in the contact tracing that had eliminated the rest of the coaching staff after one of the coaches did test positive for COVID-19, according to sources.

“I just joked with him that the last team he coached he was out in Poland and I said you should be ready for this,” said Nurse. “But you guys know his resume. I don’t know how many hundreds or thousands of games he’s been a head coach, but it’s unique and he acknowledged that much as far as the NBA game and, obviously, under the circumstances. So look forward to it and I think it’ll be a new challenge for him, but I think everybody’s ready for it.”

Were it not Scariolo — and not Lowry — another option might have been to bring Raptors 905 head Patrick Mutombo over from the G-League bubble in Orlando. As it was, joining Scariolo as front-of-the-bench assistants were Mark Tyndale, Jamaal Magloire and Jim Saan. Nurse and the rest of the staff are able to participate in pre-game preparation but can’t communicate to the staff on the bench during the game.

Which brings us back to Lowry.

“Lsten, we make jokes about it, but he does so much out on the court and he takes on a little bit bigger role,” said Webster. “I’ve spoken to him a number of times, spoke to him this morning, put in his head, he knew this was a possibility. Obviously with Fred [VanVleet], as well. Those guys are in many ways the de facto coaches out there, so just trying to get it in their head as early as possible so they could think about it.”

The Raptors are a deep team on the floor and off, and they had options and an identity.

“It’s Nick Nurse’s team. They run Nick Nurse’s stuff. He’s a great coach. I respect the heck out of him,” said Rockets head coach Stephen Silas. “Not having him over on the side doesn’t necessarily make me feel any better because it’s his team that’s coached. It’s the players that they have that make them really good.

“It’s a really tough situation they have for him and his coaching staff. But walking from the bus to the locker room, they have a bunch of other coaches. If that happened to me we’d be down to our trainer… or somebody would be coaching. For them, they have a bunch more guys.”

There was some consideration given to cancelling the game — a decision that rests with the NBA — said Webster, but once most of the players were cleared through two rounds of testing this morning it was judged reasonable to move ahead.

The exception was Raptors forward Pascal Siakam who — according to sources — had an inconclusive rapid test and required a more invasive PCR test as a follow-up with the result not expected to be available until after the game. If he clears that test he would presumably be available when the Raptors host the Chicago Bulls at Amalie Arena in Tampa on Sunday.

And so against Houston the band played on with their leader, Lowry, in his normal role as maestro on the floor. No harm in that, but those pesky league rules got in the way of Lowry coaching himself for at least one night and the possibility of the sharp-minded Raptors guard finally playing for someone who saw things exactly his way.