The Toronto Raptors won a franchise-best 59 games last season, but they were swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2nd-round of the playoffs for the second consecutive season. Because of their playoff failures, the Raptors decided they needed to make a change.
In May, the Raptors fired head coach Dwane Casey after seven seasons with the team. Casey is the team’s all-time winningest coach, and he was named Coach of the Year by his peers for the 2017-18 season, so it’s no surprise that he was recently hired by the Detroit Pistons.
The team replaced Casey with Nick Nurse, who was Casey’s assistant in Toronto last season.
Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas, who was one of the original members of the Raptors’ ownership group, gave his thoughts on why Casey may have been fired:
“You always get to a point with a team where your voice is not being heard anymore, or management is not listening to the coach anymore, or people just want change for the sake of change,” Thomas explained to the Go4it podcast.
“So, when you look at his record, you have to say he did an excellent job, and you look at the path that the Raptors have been on for the last couple of years, you give them all high marks, but then it gets down to the emotional part. Do they still like each other? Are they still listening to each other? Do they still hear each other? And it appears that upstairs management, and the coach, they weren’t listening to each other anymore. When people aren’t listening, and emotions change, then, yeah, it’s time for a change.”
Barring anything dramatic, Toronto will come back with pretty much the same team next season. Therefore, you get the sense that the organization felt the team may have needed a new voice in the locker room.
We’ll see if that “new voice” will make a difference in Toronto next season.
Thomas talks Dwane Casey at the 43:41 mark: