Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse is looking at things differently. The man at the helm of last year's championship team was one of the first to leave the market, traveling to Florida with the rest of the Raptors — the first of 22 teams invited to Walt Disney World for the restart of the season.
The Raptors are holding the early stages of their Training Camp. 2.0 at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers. The setup has earned Nurse's trust:
“I feel really safe here,” Nurse told ESPN's Tim Bontemps. “We've got a great setup, and I feel good, man.”
“I haven't sensed any discontent or whatever about having to be here, or asking why. In general, the guys are good, and I think most of them are concerned about their careers and getting back to wherever they were or getting them better. I think there's a real level that I see … the care factor is high.”
The Raptors, the only NBA team outside of the United States, faced a few complications ahead of the resumption of the season. Most Raptors had left the city of Toronto, which remains in Phase 1 of its reopening plan and enforces an immediate two-week quarantine for anyone reentering the country.
Instead of having them return to Toronto and going with an extra-long idle process, Nurse chose to have his players travel to Florida straight away instead. While Florida is seeing a surge in coronavirus cases, Nurse thinks the Raptors' situation is safe.
Nurse also believes his roster has the mettle to handle the pressure of being part of this “bubble” environment for what could be a total of four months, interacting with mostly one another for the foreseeable future:
“There's some genuine chemistry with these guys,” said Nurse. “They like to play in general, they like to play with each other, the love of the game. … I would give a lot of our guys a lot of high marks in those areas.”
The Raptors now have a slight advantage on the 19 teams currently not yet in Florida, getting a jump start on training while also acclimating to the weather of the state that will be their new home for the foreseeable future.
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