Rookie head coach Jordi Fernandez will lead the Nets into their season opener in Atlanta on Wednesday night. AP Photo by Chris Szagola
Nets general manager Sean Marks admits that Brooklyn’s NBA team is on the rebuild.
New head coach Jordi Fernandez doesn’t think it has to be a long one.
With a roster comprised mostly of young, aspiring players, a small cadre of core veterans and Fernandez about to embark on his first season on the bench, the Nets aren’t expected to do much more than hold up the bottom of the Atlantic Division this season.
But after missing the postseason for the first time in six years in 2023-24, Brooklyn basketball fanatics have to be clamoring for more.
Especially after watching the New York Liberty capture their first-ever WNBA championship at Downtown’s Barclays Center last weekend.
The 41-year-old Fernandez, fresh off leading Team Canada at the 2024 Paris Games and coming out of an impressive stint as an associate in Sacramento, isn’t necessarily thinking long-term rebuild when it comes to his first foray into head coaching at the NBA level.
“My goal is not just to get here, but to sustain it and be a head coach for many years, and be a head coach of a winning team for many years,” Fernandez insisted.
Winning might take a while here in Brooklyn as the Nets are returning from a 50-loss campaign that saw them go through former head coach Jacque Vaughn and interim Kevin Ollie before Marks hired Fernandez, the first Spaniard to ever coach an NBA franchise.
The native of Badalona watched his squad go 1-3 in the preseason, including Friday night’s 116-112 defeat to Toronto in Brooklyn.
Though the Nets aren’t expected to compete with the division’s elite — reigning NBA champion Boston, the arch rival New York Knicks and Philadelphia — Fernandez isn’t letting preseason prognostications dictate what he thinks his team is capable of during this 82-game campaign.
“(I want to) be a head coach of a team that is going to…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply