The Toronto Raptors started this season with a new head coach, their first switch in leadership since Nick Nurse, who took the Raptors to their only championship win. Serbian-born Darko Rajaković is the team’s tenth head coach and the first NBA head coach born outside of the USA. Starting by leading teams to Serbian national championships, he has worked in the NBA for the last decade. He operated as the head coach for the minor-league Tulsa 66ers, and assistant coach under the Memphis Grizzlies, the Phoenix Suns, and the Oklahoma City Thunder. All showed noticeable improvements under his tenure, though that improvement has never translated into a title before.

This is a unique position for the Raptors; our previous head coach had been with the team for about a decade. Nick Nurse started as an assistant coach before being promoted by franchise owner Masai Ujiri. In his first season as head coach, the Raptors won the 2019 Championship title. However, each season since then has seen a steady downhill for Toronto. In two years we went from winning the entire league to twelfth in the Eastern Conference (the fifteen-team subdivision that competes in the first round of championships). In our last season, we won 50% of games.

Under Darko Rajaković, we are eleventh in the Eastern Conference, winning slightly less than half our games. However, the first season with a new coach is always difficult, especially when a team wasn’t doing well to begin with. Nurse was an exception, but under his predecessor Dwayne Casey, the Raptors won only 34% of their games his first season. Masai Ujiri’s decisions for the Raptors have normally worked out well in the long-term. Fans were unsure when he fired Casey for Nurse, who had never been a head coach before, but that worked. Fans were heartbroken when he traded DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard, but Leonard was the sole reason 2019 worked. Fans were doubtful when in the previous trading season he re-acquired Jakob Poetl and gave up no players… we haven’t seen the long-term results of that yet, but so far Poetl meshes well with his old team-mates.

Teams tend to rise and fall as players are traded, old talent ages, and new talent arises. Our time at the top was shortened by COVID-19 disrupting the NBA, causing a shortened season and a temporary fostering of the team in Tampa Bay, Florida. Ujiri is implementing a re-build we likely won’t see the fruits of for five years, starting with everyone’s new favourite court jester, fresh draft pick Gradey Dick. Hopefully the rough start to the season is an exception instead of an omen. Either way, it’s enjoyable to see new uniforms and new players. It’s also nice to have a coach that looks active and enthusiastic for once. Nick Nurse always looks like he’s got the flu.