The Toronto Raptors haven’t even existed for three decades, yet they’ve already churned through nine different head coaches. While it’s easy to forget the hard times after the success of Dwane Casey and Nick Nurse, the path to regular postseason success was built on the back of decades of trial and error.
Toronto’s history is full of both genuine success, coaches who got a raw deal after being fired too soon, and mistakes that are better left buried in the annals of Raptors history.
This is the definitive ranking of the nine head coaches in Toronto Raptors history
9. Brendan Malone
Brendan Malone was not the coach of the Raptors for very long
Malone was the first coach in Raptors history, as Isiah Thomas, who assumed an executive role with the neophyte Raptors, named an assistant from Chuck Daly’s Bad Boys teams as the first head coach in team history, with Thomas citing his creativity in stopping Michael Jordan and creating exciting defenses.
Unfortunately, Malone was not given much time to implement his vision in Toronto, as he was fired after just one season, going 21-61. While winning 21 games isn’t something to be proud of, the Raptors were an expansion team, and Thomas might’ve been a bit impatient by expecting Malone to be a star right away. Malone was an interim coach in Cleveland briefly, and he was an assistant for almost two decades, but he never got another chance as a head coach after his one-year stint north of the border
8. Kevin O’Neill
Kevin O’Neill quickly wore out his welcome with the Raptors
O’Neill bounced around as a coach at both the pro and collegiate levels, as he was a head coach at Marquette, Tennessee, and Northwestern, with mixed success, before moving to the NBA as an assistant. The McGill graduate returned to Canada when he was named head coach in 2003, and he energized the fanbase by starting the season off at 25-25. Unfortunately, O’Neill would win just eight of his remaining 32 games.
O’Neill was fired shortly after the season, in part due to comments he made that questioned Toronto’s desire to build a winner. O’Neill went to the college ranks at Arizona, where he lost a power struggle against the late great Lute Olson. He followed that up by flaming out at USC. O’Neill might’ve been able to turn things around, but he only got one season to prove himself, and pointing the finger at management after going 8-24 to end the year is certainly not a good look for him.
7. Darrell Walker
Darrell Walker doesn’t leave a very accomplished legacy with the Toronto Raptors
Walker followed Malone as the head coach of the Raptors, and he was also unable to make Toronto a factor in the East during the early stages of his career. Unlike Malone, however, Walker was allowed to coach more than one season, as the former Rockford Lightning coach managed to last until his second season before he vacated his post. Walker’s 31.3 winning percentage remains the worst mark in Raptors history, as he won just 41 of his 131 games despite having some talent available on his roster.
Walker was playing some futuristic basketball, as those Raptors played with the third-highest pace in the league. Unfortunately, the defense did him in, as the Raptors of 1997 gave up more points than any team in the league. Luckily for Walker, who briefly coached the NBA’s Washington Wizards and WNBA’s Washington Mystics, he found success as an assistant with the Hornets, Pistons, and Knicks. Currently, he is the head coach at Little Rock, where he led the Trojans to a 21-10 record and a Sun Belt regular-season title last year.
6. Jay Triano
Jay Triano’s run with the Raptors was poor after losing Chris Bosh
On paper, Triano should’ve been a home run. An Ontario native who attended Simon Fraser, Triano made his name as a coach for the Canadian national team before becoming an assistant in Toronto. While he wobbled to the finish in 2008-09 after being named the interim head coach, Triano’s Raptors showed some real improvement, as they won 40 games and narrowly missed out on a postseason spot next year. Things changed, however, when Chris Bosh departed for the Miami Heat.
With Bosh gone, Triano was unable to once again help the Raptors’ offense rank fifth in the league in points per game. Andrea Bargnani, Leandro Barbosa, and a very young DeMar DeRozan were unable to make the Raptors much of a threat, as they won just 22 games before Triano got the axe. After he was let go, Triano was reassigned within the Raptors organization before becoming an assistant in Portland, a head coach in Phoenix, albeit briefly, and an assistant in Charlotte, where he remains now. Triano would’ve been an amazing success story, but he is instead remembered as a very inconsistent coach.
5. Butch Carter
Butch Carter’s reign with the Raptors was productive, but controversial
Let’s get it out of the way right now. Carter’s reign as Raptors coach was DICEY. He alienated Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady by limiting their playing time. He sued Marcus Camby for $5 million before the playoffs. He invited Master P to try out for the Raptors in a publicity stunt to distract attention away from Carter. He claimed that the NBA was sabotaging the Raptors in order to get Vince to a bigger market, which ultimately laid the groundwork for his trade to the Nets. He alienated McGrady and helped get him traded to Orlando. He tried to stab his old friend in GM Glen Grunwald in the back to get control of the roster.
Now, let’s get to the good. Carter, older brother of NFL Hall of Famer Cris Carter, took over a franchise that had been a doormat for years and won just 16 games in 1997-98, and he had them as a 45-37 playoff team in his second full season as a coach, making him the first Toronto coach to taste postseason success. While his tenure was brief and extremely controversial, he helped show that the Raptors can make it to the postseason, and Toronto fans shouldn’t make Carter into a complete pariah that gets proverbially burned in effigy.
4. Sam Mitchell
Sam Mitchell actually took home a Coach of the Year award with the Raptors
It took over a decade, but the Raptors’ inability to get to the postseason was finally erased by Mitchell, who became the first Toronto coach to win a playoff game. After two traditionally subpar seasons, Mitchell was on fire for all of 2006-07, as he was named Coach of the Year after winning 47 games and getting them to the postseason, which he followed up with a 41-win season the year after. Mitchell. 2008-09 was supposed to be the year that it all came together, but it just didn’t work out.
Mitchell started the season off at 8-9, which ultimately led to his dismissal and the installation of Triano as the coach. Despite his success, Mitchell was only a head coach for one more season after his dismissal, as he was briefly in charge of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite his short reign, he remains mostly beloved by Raptors fans.
3. Lenny Wilkins
The legendary Lenny Wilkins made a brief stop in Toronto with the Raptors
Wilkins is one of the greatest coaches in NBA history, as the Hall of Fame point guard, held the record for most wins by a single coach ever. After winning an NBA championship with his beloved Seattle SuperSonics following a few years as a player-coach, Wilkins embarked on a 22-year stint that only saw five losing seasons. Wilkins was in his mid-60s and near the end of his coaching rope when the Raptors hired him, but he took them deeper into the postseason than they had ever been before.
Wilkins was only the coach for three seasons, but he made the playoffs in two of them, becoming the first Toronto coach to take the team to the playoffs multiple times. After he was let go following his third season, Wilkins was named head coach of the New York Knicks. The Raptors might be a footnote in Wilkins’ illustrious coaching career, but he won’t have to pay for a drink in Toronto ever again.
2. Dwane Casey
Dwane Casey turned the Raptors into a consistent playoff team
Casey, who spent a decade as an assistant in Seattle, failed as a head coach in Minnesota, making him a somewhat controversial choice to succeed Triano as the coach in Toronto. While it took him a while to get going, Casey turned DeRozan and Kyle Lowry into starts, riding that dynamic duo to five straight playoff appearances, including the franchise’s first-ever appearance in the Conference Finals. Despite winning Coach of the Year, Casey was fired in 2018 after once again falling to LeBron James.
It’s easy to call Casey a disappointment for failing to make it to the Finals while leading some stacked teams, but he was the first coach to make the Raptors a perennial threat in the postseason, helping reverse the fortunes of a franchise that was either stuck in the lottery or knocked out of the playoffs quickly. Ultimately, the decision was a wise one, as they hired a certain G League coach that took them to the promised land.
1. Nick Nurse
Nick Nurse finally took the Raptors to the promised land
Nurse has the one thing the eight men who came before don’t have, as he was able to slide a championship ring on his finger. Sure, having Kawhi Leonard helps, but taking a team that had never even been to the Finals, all the while ending the Golden State Warriors’ dynasty. Nurse was a bit of a risky hire, as firing the most successful coach in team history in Casey to bring him in certainly qualifies as controversial, but he has proved the Raptors correct in doing so by winning 72 percent of his games in his first two seasons.
Nurse’s biggest asset is his ability to adapt. While he has played with superstars like Kawhi Leonard and a motley crew of above-average players, he has won with both alignments, which speaks to the fact that his acumen and tactics have played a huge part in Toronto’s resurgence. After literal decades without a consistent winner, Nurse took the best part of Casey’s system and expanded upon them while adding in a few interesting kinks of his own. The result has made Toronto a feared postseason presence, and Nurse himself a venerated figure in Canadian sports.
Toronto Raptors: The Center of their failures
The Toronto Raptors have discarded another center. It should come to no one's surprise as the man in the middle has always been the Achilles heel of the