Of course if you are going to use docker and run node-red in a docker container then for node-red development it doesn't matter that much which OS you are using as host OS.
In that context it is important to choose a host OS that is supporting all the hardware of your intel NUC that you want to use. CentOS (and I also guess ubuntu) is doing this pretty well.
FYI here below the instruction to install and configure CentOS as host OS on my intel NUC (which is named nuc-jan2) with docker. (I guess for ubuntu it will be the same or even simpler).
Although I am running it normally headless, I have chosen server with gui as sometimes I am connecting a monitor to it.
