Nick Nurse, Caleb Martin believe Sixers point guard Kyle Lowry would be a good NBA head coach

Does Kyle Lowry have the makings of the best NBA head coach among active players?

The answer is yes, according to the 2024-25 survey by the league’s general managers.

Asked about that Wednesday after 76ers practice, coach Nick Nurse agreed that Lowry could be a good head coach.

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“Yeah, most definitely,” Nurse said. “I think that he’s got a couple things that I would think would make him a good coach. He really loves the game. He really studies the game. He knows the game, and, obviously, he’s got a toughness level, right?

“I think he could handle going out there to fight.”

Nurse believes Lowry doesn’t know any better than to compete when the ball goes up, which he said is a good trait.

“I could very easily see him being a head coach someday,” Nurse said.

Nurse joked that he wouldn’t want to play for Lowry before chuckling and saying that he would.

Nurse knows about Lowry’s leadership, basketball IQ and competitiveness more than anyone in the organization. The 38-year-old was Nurse’s All-Star point guard on the Toronto Raptors’ 2019 NBA championship team.

Their relationship grew after Nurse was promoted to head coach on June 13, 2018, following five seasons as an assistant with Toronto.

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Nurse was hired as Sixers coach on July 1, 2023. The Sixers originally signed Lowry to a contract for the remainder of the 2023-24 season on Feb. 13 after his contract was bought out by the Charlotte Hornets two days earlier. That came after the Miami Heat traded Lowry to Charlotte on Jan. 23.

Lowry re-signed with the Sixers this summer and reunited with free-agent acquisition Caleb Martin, who spent the last three seasons with the Heat.

“Oh, for sure. Yeah,” Martin said of Lowry being able to coach. “I mean, he knows the game. He’s like one of those dudes you think goes home and reads the handbook every day.

“Like, he knows every rule. He’s telling refs the rules, coaches the rules, players the rules. So he knows the game inside out.”

Martin describes Lowry as a good person with good energy who has been a good fit for the Sixers.

“So I could really see him being a head coach, for sure,” Martin said.

Lowry averaged 8.0 points, 4.6 assists, and 28.4 minutes in 23 regular-season games — including 20 starts — with the Sixers last season.

The North Philly native, who stood out at Cardinal Dougherty and Villanova, is entering his 19th NBA season. The six-time All-Star and Olympic gold medalist has averaged 14.3 points and 6.2 assists and 1.3 steals in 1,138 games with the Memphis Grizzlies, Houston Rockets, Raptors, Heat, and Sixers. He never played for the Hornets.

While the belief is that Lowry would be a great coach, Martin also has been a solid fit for the Sixers.

“I think that he’s got a really high IQ, right?” Nurse said of the forward. “Like, he knows how to play, and he also understands that he’s learning some new stuff, and he knows — he asks really good questions about what we’re doing and what we’re getting into, which shows he’s got a high level of thought going on there. So that’s probably the biggest thing.”