Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez has impressed plenty of coaches around the NBA over his past two years as head coach of the Nets, despite the team still in the early stages of its rebuild. Brooklyn has tabbed Fernandez and his coaching staff to hopefully lead the team into the next era of competitive Nets basketball, but he explains where he grew the most this past season.
“Probably controlling my emotions with the results. Understanding that wins and losses for you are not just understandings, it’s very pretty to say, but to actually emotionally live with it day-to-day, it’s not easy,” Fernandez said during a recent appearance on the “Nets Pod” with Sarah Kustok. Fernandez addressed a variety of topics over the course of this interview, including how he has dealt with the past two seasons of mostly losses.
“You see the young guys get better, our young guys play 6,400 minutes, the most that I think any rookies have ever played. There’s different areas that they’re very good at,” Fernandez continued by explaining how much he values the rookies from the 2025 draft class getting better. “Egor’s shooting and Nolan’s playmaking and Ben’s touching the paint and Danny’s versatility and Drake’s ability to guard the ball. All those things that we have the results and the numbers [on].”
As Fernandez touched on in the first part of his answer, he has had to learn with the losses in a different capacity than he normally would with all things being equal. Over the past two years, the Nets have a combined record of 46-118 (.280), placing them as one of the worst teams in the league in that timespan, but the main goal of the franchise currently is to develop as many of the younger players as possible.
As Fernandez alluded to, all of the five rookies showed what their potential can be as time goes on, but most of the attention is focused on players like Egor Demin and Nolan Traore. The Nets will be going into the 2026-27 season with Demin, Traore, and the rest of the second-year players along with a rookie from the 2026 class so Fernandez will hope that his growth will help him handle next season in a better manner.
This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Nets’ Jordi Fernandez explains where he grew as a coach last season
Reporting by Sharif Phillips-Keaton, Nets Wire / Nets Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Sharif Phillips-Keaton, Nets Wire | USA TODAY Network
