The Raptors Are Fully Invested in Nick Nurse's Shooting School

As NBA teams continue to push the boundaries of offensive production, ironing out every last offensive inefficiency as they try to stamp out the last remanence of the midrange and post-up game, the Toronto Raptors appear to be zagging.

It’s not that Raptors coach Nick Nurse is some dinosaur when it comes to offensive innovation. Frankly, he’s been one of the coaches at the forefront of this movement, pushing for more three-pointer and at-the-rim shots than ever before. Only the Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves have taken more shots behind the arc or at the rim shots than the Raptors over the past two seasons. But while the league pays exorbitant prices for three-point marksman, the Raptors — for the most part — have taken a different approach to team building.

Give me your tired, your poor, your unable to shoot three-pointers, the Raptors have said to the league, I’m sure. Bring me Precious Achiuwa, Khem Birch, and Scottie Barnes. Bring me your lumps of coal, in Nick Nurse’s shooting night school, they’ll turn into diamonds.

“If you want to stay in basketball, devote yourself to shooting. If you’re already a good shooter, become a better one,” Nurse wrote in his book Rapture. “It’s the one skill in the game that nearly anyone can get better at.”

Hey Nick, I asked Thursday, can you teach me how to shoot? (Note: I really can’t shoot)

“It just depends,” he said. “If we went out there and spent some time and you were willing to do some work, I could improve your dribbling. I think you can take any skill and try to make some adjustments as long as you were coachable and then you wanted to put in the work then, yeah, I imagine we could improve your shooting.

To Nurse, it’s pretty simple. If there’s a willingness to learn, he can improve just about anyone’s shot. That’s why the Raptors drafted Barnes fourth overall despite his 27% three-pointing in college. It’s also why Toronto was so eager to trade for Achiuwa who attempted just one three-pointer in his rookie season and why the organization feels so confident Nurse can help Birch stretch his game out to behind the arc.

It’s going to take some time for everyone in Nurse’s shooting school to get comfortable with the slight tweaks he’s asking them to make. First, it’s about learning the adjustment — for Barnes, it’s shooting off two fingers — and then it’s about getting in reps over and over and over again until it feels natural.

“Usually when you're changing things, any kind of motor skill thing that you're doing, it feels really uncomfortable if you change just a little bit of something,” Nurse said.

“Getting some of those things that line up to make the ball fly a little better, take a little time to get comfortable, but that's what we're aiming for.”

Right now, enrollment is full at Nurse’s shooting school, Nurse joked. It’s packed with players who have no track record of being successful three-point shooters but willing to learn from the man who quite literally wrote the book on shooting. Because as long as there’s a wiliness to learn, there will be improvement, Nurse believes. And when it does all clicks, the Raptors should have something very scary on their hands: a versatile defensive juggernaut where everyone is at the very least a threat to let it fly from deep.