NEW YORK — The Brooklyn Nets are coming off a disappointing 2023-24 campaign in which the team finished with a 32-50 record despite how they began the season. As Brooklyn moves through this offseason, the organization will have to figure out what kind of team this will be after the team looked listless at times in terms of how they wanted to play.
“We’ll have a team that’s extremely competitive on both sides of the floor… Very competitive at both ends,” Nets new head coach Jordi Fernandez said recently when he was formally introduced as the leader of this team for the foreseeable future. Identity has been a tough area for Brooklyn to address given that the franchise has cycled through three different head coaches in the past two seasons.
Not to mention that the team went from a championship contender with Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden leading the team to a squad that was in between rebuilding and competing for the playoffs with guys like Mikal Bridges, Nic Claxton, and Cam Johnson running the show. Not only do the Nets have to establish their own style of play, but they have to play together as well.
“A team that is connected, so that means that they care about each other, and a team that is selfless — that will put the team first,” Fernandez explained. “I think this will give us the identity that we need. As you guys know, the NBA with 82 regular-season games and then postseason is going to be a challenge. There’s going to be ups and downs, but like I said, if we’re able to fight, if we care about each other, if we put the team first, we’re going to be very good in the long run.”
There were times last season where it seemed like Brooklyn was just five guys playing on the same team together as opposed to a team that cheered each other on and made sacrifices for each other. With Fernandez at the helm, the hope is that he can get the players to play as a unit and win more games through teamwork and effort.
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