Why Nick Nurse thinks OG Anunoby is irreplaceable

Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse discusses what makes OG Anunoby special and why it's difficult to find players in the NBA like him. Find Nurse's full post-draft availability on our Yahoo Sports Canada YouTube channel.

Video Transcript

NICK NURSE: Well, first of all, it's important for us, and it's good. For us, it's good to see him around. I think that there has appeared to me this summer, not only today, but a lot of these weeks here since we've broken up, there's a pretty good closeness with this group.

And it was good today. We had Pascal and OF and Scottie all on the floor today working out with each other at the same time. And that was exciting to kind of watch them kind of go at it a little bit. And I think that's, you know, both sides of the ball. That can only help them playing against each other, similar sized athletes and similar sized positions. And they've got to guard each other. And they've got to try to score on each other and things like that. So that's good.

But mostly it's just listen, our guys, our guys are like, rightly so, they're proud to be Raptors. They love the organization. They love to be here. And I think it's cool that they're here and poking their heads in wondering, who's going to be joining them? Who's going to be joining them? So it's good team spirit team, feels really good right now, so it's exciting to see.

- On that theme, I mean, has there been any indication from you or from OG about his concerns about his role or how he was used this past year, as a lot of reporting leading up to the draft was indicating?

NICK NURSE: Listen, I think that not only OG, but I have talked with these guys a lot about their roles and had a really good, positive season ending kind of wrap up with OG. We certainly talk about all this. I think, listen, I think OG is really good. I really like him. Like, he is a tremendous person and a great two-way player.

He had a little bit of a rocky road last year, obviously, with the injuries. I think more than anything, he just wants to be out there, because I think we all saw him kind of revving his engines, ready to take off, until-- I mean, I can't remember what first kind of derailed him. But he came in, just zooming this way. Yeah, I think it was a hip. Yeah, I think that happened in Philly or something. And that was kind of the first thing that set him back. And then he had a finger and things like that.

But I think more than anything, he wants to get out there and play, be available more games. And I think that his production and his promise and his continued development of getting better and better hinges on that. I think he knows it. And I think we all know it. But guys like him are hard to find in this league.