Why Nick Nurse at +3500 Is the Smartest NBA Coach of the Year Bet You Can Make

The Philadelphia 76ers were a train wreck last season. Joel Embiid got hurt, Paul George got hurt. Even Jared McCain got hurt right when he was starting to run away with the Rookie of the Year award.

In the city where they once booed Santa Claus, Philadelphians simply turned their focus to the NFL Eagles and wrote the Sixers off for a year.

The Health Factor: Ifs and Maybes with MVP-Level Talent

But there is the thing: Embiid is a legitimate MVP contender if healthy. George is a nine-time All-Star. V.J. Edgecombe was the No. 3 pick in the NBA draft and is considered the most athletic rookie out there. And if we learned anything from the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals, speed can kill... as in kill opponents.

Well, the Sixers have built a team that is built on speed, with one caveat. They have one of the two best big men in the NBA (props to Nikola Jokic), and they are playing in an Eastern Conference in which Jayson Tatum (Celtics) and Tyrese Haliburton (Pacers) are already sidelined for the season, and Damian Lillard is no longer with the Bucks.

So opportunity knocks in terms of going from the 13th best team in the East to the first or second-best team in the East. And you know what awards voters seize upon? We covered this previously in touting Dyson Daniels for Defensive Player of the Year, and we are going to do it again for those punters who do not mind waiting until June until getting their payoff.

The LEast-ern Conference Is There for the Taking

Sixers coach Nick Nurse is +3500 to be Coach of the Year in the 2025-26 season, which is absurd. 

Here is a guy who was coach of the year in 2020 and has a career resume that includes coaching the Derby Rams in Great Britain. So, yeah, the guy has climbed the career charts.

Factor in that the Celtics are now without Tatum and Jrue Holiday, the Knicks are no longer being guided by coach Tom Thibodeau, the Milwaukee Bucks are all about keeping/losing Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Indiana Pacers shed Myles Turner and did not replace him, and we now have even more reason to dub the lesser of the two 15-team groupings as the "LEastern Conference."

And because the Sixers have assembled a "speed team" built around George, Tyrese Maxey, Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes (if they can keep him in restricted free agency), this not not going to be the 13th-best team in the East.

But somebody has to finish first, and if the Sixers can overcome their chronic injury maladies, Nurse is poised to have a massive turnaround from last season's 24-58 record, which left them three spots from the bottom in the East.

Remember, just two seasons ago Philly finished in a three-way tie for fifth place in the East, 12 games over .500.

Also try to remember that voters gravitate toward teams that exceed expectations, which was why Kenny Atkinson of the Cavs took home the trophy after the Cavs improved from 48 to 64 victories. 

Using that 16-game improvement as a benchmark, the Sixers would only need to win 40 games to meet the "Atkinson benchmark."

Of course, 40 wins (against 42 losses) is not going to win anybody anything, but Nurse has Embiid, a perennial MVP candidate when healthy, and if you are willing to wage that Embiid can play more than 68 games for the first time in what will be his 11th season, then off we shall go.

Betting Markets Are Sleeping on Nick Nurse

Right now at Bet365, Nurse is sitting as the 13th choice at +3300 in what is a confounding set of odds. 

For example, Mark Daignault, who led the Oklahoma city Thunder to an NBA=best 68-14 record, is at +3000. And it says here that if he gets them two more victories to reach 70, he is a mortal lock.

The favorite is Orlando's Jamaal Mosley at +450, the thinking being that no team is poised better to take advantage of all of the East's injuries that the Magic. But at full strength, Philly's roster is better, and that makes Nurse's odds all the more enticing. Remember, Nurse won this award in 2020. 

Mosley? He won 41 games and lost 41 games last season, and we just don't see a 16-game improvement happening after an offseason in which sharpshooter Desmond Bane was the only significant roster improvement. 

Quin Snyder +650 (Hawks), David Adelman +700 (Nuggets) and Ime Udoka +700 (Rockets) round out the top five, and unless Kristaps Porzingis can turn back the clock 7 years and make Atlanta a top 2 team, we just do not see it. As for Adelman and Udoka, they coach stud teams, and stud teams are incapable of overachieving unless they get their win total into the 70s. And in the stacked West, that is a near impossibility.

As for the Eastern Conference, the award is there for the taking for Nurse if Embiid and George can each play 70 games. That may be a stretch, but the speed demons that are making up the remainder of the roster sort of resemble last year's Indiana Pacers, who went to the NBA Finals. 

Nurse at +3500 is a line that will only shrink if the Sixers jump out of the game. If you like it, jump on it. And if you like to hedge, take Daignault before his odds drop, too.