The Brooklyn Nets have begun the first part of their crucial offseason as they are now able to make the hiring of Sacramento Kings assistant Jordi Fernandez as head coach official. Brooklyn general manager Sean Marks and owner Joe Tsai issued their statements on Fernandez and now, Fernandez can finally explain how he feels about becoming a first-time head coach in the NBA.
“I am truly grateful to lead the Nets as head coach and cannot thank Joe, Clara and Sean enough for this exciting and humbling opportunity,” Fernandez said in his statement in a press release by the Nets on Monday. Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported on Apr. 15 that Brooklyn was expected to hire Fernandez, but the hiring was not made official because the Kings were in the Western Conference play-in tournament at the time.
“My family and I are thrilled to join such an incredible organization and become part of the vibrant Brooklyn community,” Fernandez continued in his statement. “I am eager to get to work with this talented group of players and collectively drive our team forward.”
As Marks said in his statement, the search for a new head coach took “six weeks” and was an exhaustive search given how many candidates were in contention for the position.
Jake Fischer of Yahoo! Sports reported on Apr. 5 that Fernandez was amongst the top candidates if Brooklyn decided to start over with a young head coach while Shams Charania of The Athletic reported on Apr. 13 that Fernandez “emerged” among the finalists for the job.
CJ Holmes of the New York Daily News wrote a feature on Fernandez that published on Apr. 18 that showed how various people that he has come across over the course of his coaching career feel about him, with most testimonials overwhelmingly positive.
Fernandez has a reputation around the NBA as a player’s coach and a guy who cares about putting the team above himself. “Together, we will be fully committed to building something special for Nets fans and the borough to be proud of for years to come,” Fernandez said.
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