Is there a communication breakdown between Raptors' Nurse and Dwane Casey?

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You wouldn’t want to call Wednesday night’s game between the Toronto Raptors and Detroit Pistons a grudge match, exactly. That would suggest an unusual friction between the players.

But there’s clearly something going on between the men in charge. Raptors coach Nick Nurse and Pistons coach Dwane Casey worked together for five seasons in Toronto until the former inherited the latter’s job over the summer. The presumption during that time was that they weren’t just colleagues, but friends.

Since their parting, they have been careful to give each other elaborate compliments in public. The words sound pleasant enough, but the tone is surprisingly Arctic.

Here’s Nurse on Tuesday when asked whether he and Casey have communicated since the student graduated to the master’s position:

“My communication with whomever is between me and whomever I’m communicating with, whether it’s Kyle [Lowry] and me or Kawhi [Leonard] and me or Case and me … I’m going to keep that to myself.”

This was a weird direction to take it, especially since the answer came out so quickly that it sounded practised. Like any other coach, Nurse talks all the time about his “communication” with his players. What else do you think he tells the media?

It was then put to Nurse that he had not, in fact, spoken with his ex-boss, electronically or otherwise. Nurse’s hands were now dug into his pants pockets as if he’d lost something in there, and his habitual fidgeting had become a wary stillness.

“Me and my communications are between me and him. I really am looking forward to seeing him.”

Maybe he is. Maybe this is all hunky-dory. And maybe the next time someone asks you whether you’ve seen Percy from accounting, with whom you used to work, you will reply, “I am choosing to take the fifth on that question. My communications, whether it’s Percy and me or Shelley from IT and me, shall remain between us.”

Now here’s Lowry – a player who had a turbulent relationship with Casey, one that early on involved a very mutual dislike – on whether he’s heard from his old boss:

“I talked to Case before the season and I had another one … but it was nothing. Nothing crazy.”

How about Jonas Valanciunas, a player with whom Casey did not exactly share a broad base of intercultural or intergenerational understanding?

“We texted each other. I was away the whole summer, so we talked just on phone.”

It seems as though a lot of messages, however scant, are making it across the lines between former long-time colleagues, except for, well, you know.

On its face, none of this is odd, and certainly not disturbing. People in sports get fired as a matter of course. Feelings are hurt as a result. Friendships endure. Purely professional associations do not. Just because you worked well with a guy doesn’t mean you want to have beers with him, or he with you. That’s all fine.

What’s bizarre here is the manner in which the ill will – because that’s sure what it sounds like – is being clung to.

It would not have cost Nurse much to take the L on this one, to say he and Casey were good colleagues but not close, and that he now regrets the manner of their parting – even if that isn’t true. No one needs to know the blow-by-blow of how it went down, but Casey’s the senior man. He has earned the concession of winning the argument.

That line of explanation would have spun out nicely for Nurse – made him look magnanimous and appreciative of his good fortune.

It’s very early days, so he hasn’t made much of a personal impression on Toronto fans yet. This would have been a fabulous first one. Instead, he stiffens up in the witness box and comes off as brittle and defensive.

As a result, a non-issue of interest only to wonks and obsessives suddenly becomes a topic of general conversation. Who doesn’t enjoy a fight between famous millionaires?

Five years ago, Nurse was coaching the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. Now he’s fronting the hottest franchise in the NBA. He doesn’t need a car. He should be able to skip to work faster.

What’s to be embittered about, even a little?

Nurse did say a lot of nice things about Casey the coach – about his work ethic, his success, his ability to manage the players. He didn’t say anything substantive about Casey the man, except to keep repeating that he “respects” him (which we all know is what you say about someone you don’t like much, but don’t feel comfortable criticizing).

Wednesday night’s game is meaningless in the larger sense. A possible feud gives the occasion a touch of theatre, but that won’t last long. The coaches are both grown-ups and certain to act accordingly. This beef will be squashed, in public at least, and people will find something else to gossip about.

But moving on down the road, it creates a very small question mark about how the guy running the Toronto Raptors deals with conflict.

An established NBA coach has the freedom to pick fights and indulge grudges. A rookie coach does not. A rookie coach who’s never played the game at the highest level has even less.

As they say down south, games are won by Jimmys and Joes, not x’s and o’s. Nurse is a demonstrably accomplished tactician. But how is he with people, especially when things go wrong? We haven’t got there yet. Nothing’s gone wrong.

What happens the first time Lowry goes squirrelly or Serge Ibaka feels tempted to go over to the dark side? What if Leonard gets frustrated and withdraws? What’s the plan then?

As an assistant, it wasn’t Nurse’s responsibility to maintain the team’s emotional equilibrium. He didn’t have to keep everybody happy. Now it is and he does. It’s the most important and difficult work of any professional coach, and especially so in the NBA.

Maybe Nurse is going to prove he’s good at this part of the game, too. Not being able to sound remotely sincere about liking a guy who had a hand in making your professional dream come true isn’t a great start.