Nick Nurse shows off his musical skills, jams to Fleetwood Mac with Mt. Joy, Arkells
The Sixers coach has a longstanding friendship with Toronto-based Arkells.
Nick Nurse is coaching one of the NBA’s top teams, but he’s still finding the time to kick back and play some music with his friends.
On Sunday, Toronto-area band Arkells posted a video on TikTok of a jam session featuring the Sixers coach and Mt. Joy, an indie folk band with Philly ties, with Nurse on the piano playing “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac.
Nurse has long loved music. He hung posters of his favorite musicians, like Thelonious Monk, in his Raptors office and is a “concert-level pianist,” according to his nephew. Nurse also plays guitar.
Nurse has a longstanding friendship with Arkells dating back to his time in Canada. He joined the band on stage in Toronto a few months after the Raptors’ 2019 NBA championship win to play guitar during a rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.”
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He’s popped up a few other times on Arkells’ social media channels playing the piano or guitar for frontman Max Kerman.
Nurse and the Raptors also helped the band open a new basketball court in Woodlands Park in Hamilton, Ontario. Nurse launched his foundation, The Nick Nurse Foundation, with an Evening of Music, featuring a performance from Arkells.
That relationship hasn’t stopped now that Nurse is with the Sixers, and they’ve now looped in Mt. Joy, a band formed by Matt Quinn and Sam Cooper, who went to high school together in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Will we see Nurse take his talents to a local stage, like Sixers president of basketball operations and known theater kid Daryl Morey?
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