Masai Ujiri spoke of the Toronto Raptors decision to fire Dwane Casey and ultimately replace him with Nick Nurse.

“We think he’s a great coach in the making,” Ujiri told The Athletic on Wednesday. “I think, hopefully, this is his chance. We believe in him. We’ve always studied what Nick has done, and I think he has good experience as an assistant. He’s a good, creative mind that I think is a motivated guy, a guy that can motivate people, and we’ll see. This is the NBA, and we have confidence in Nick.”

Ujiri described the decision to fire Casey as a difficult one.

“That was tough,” Ujiri said of relieving Casey of his coaching duties. “It was one of the toughest things I said I’ve done. Casey is an unbelievable man. I really congratulate him for the job he did with us and the job, I know, he’s going to do with Detroit. We had to go in a different direction, and that was tough, but those conversations are always hard. Casey is a good man, I believe a good friend, and I know he will go on to do better things – even better than the ones he did in Toronto, and he did excellent with us.”