Review of "Rapture"

One of the more surprising sports championships in recent years was when the Toronto Raptors defeated the Golden State Warriors in the 2019 NBA Finals.  Their coach, Nick Nurse, was in his first season of being an NBA head coach, but he certainly was not an inexperienced coach, as his memoir shows.  Here is my review of "Rapture."  

Title/Author:

“Rapture: Fifteen Teams, Four Countries, One NBA Championship and How to Find a Way to Win – Damn Near Anywhere” by Nick Nurse

Tags:

Basketball, professional, memoir, Raptors, championship, coaching

Publish date:

October 13, 2020

Length:

272 pages

Rating:

4 of 5 stars (very good) 

Review:

Nick Nurse achieved a rare feat for a coach in any professional sport – he coached a team to a championship in his first season as a head coach in the league.  In his case, it was leading the Toronto Raptors to the 2019 NBA championship in his first season as an NBA head coach.  How he got to that point and all the adventures he had on his way to Toronto is told in this fun-to-read memoir.

Nurse tells how many different countries and teams he has coached in the title and he has entertaining stories to tell about each one. Some of the better ones are about the team he coached in England where in order to keep his job and team together, he had to become the owner as well. He even coached Dennis Rodman for two games in that country.  

Unlike some other well-known teams and leagues in Europe and Asia, many teams in England live on a thread and can fold in a moment’s notice.  Despite all of this, Nurse shares his love for his time there and other countries as well. When he decided to return to the United States, he found employment in the NBA D-League (now called the G-League) with a new team called the Iowa Energy.

Not only was Nurse excited to coach in his home state, but with a new team, he was able to showcase some of his more innovative coaching ideas.  Most prominent among those is his emphasis on proper shooting technique in which he uses a specially marked ball he calls the Nurse Pill.  Between that and some innovative offensive plays, he enjoyed success in the D-League in both Iowa and later in the Rio Grande Valley.

When Nurse moved up to become an assistant coach in Toronto under Dwayne Casey and then head coach after Casey was fired after the 2018 playoffs, he took what he had learned coaching for all those teams and applied them to the Raptors.  What was especially interesting was his manner in which he communicated and related to his players.  He is quite in tune to the mindset of an NBA player and he displays that consistently during the chapters on his time with the Raptors.  These are the sections in the book that can most easily be used by readers in their day-to-day lives, no matter what their profession or work entails.  One doesn’t have to be a basketball coach or fan to not only enjoy this book but to also get some valuable advice.

I wish to thank Little, Brown and Company for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Book Format Read:

E-book (Kindle)                                                                                                                                 

Buying Links:

http://www.amazon.com/Rapture-Fifteen-Countries-Championship-Anywhere/dp/031654017X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr