Tag: Jordi Fernandez

Nets add Travis Bader as assistant coach to Jordi Fernandez’s staff

The Brooklyn Nets announced on Friday that they have added Travis Bader as an assistant coach to Jordi Fernandez’s coaching staff.

The Brooklyn Nets are heading into a new era of the franchise as they look to get back to the playoffs after missing the postseason entirely last season. With Jordi Fernandez as the new head coach of a rebuilding Brooklyn team, he has been shaping his staff to his liking, including a recent addition.

The Nets announced on Friday what the coaching staff will be for the 2024-25 season as the team looks to correct a lot of issues from 2023-24. The last addition to Fernandez’s staff is Travis Bader and now, the nine assistant coaches for the Nets are in place and ready to go.

Bader, 32, has been promoted as an assistant coach to Fernandez’s staff after spending the past four seasons as a video assistant. According to Bader’s LinkedIn profile, he has also had responsibilities in film breakdown, scouting, and player development, something that Brooklyn has been prioritizing since they hired Fernandez.

Bader played his college basketball at Oakland University and upon his graduation was third in NCAA history in three-point field-goals made and attempted. Following his time at Oakland University, Bader went on to play professionally, but spent most of his time playing overseas.

However, Bader did have two stints in the G League when he played for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in 2015 and for the Austin Spurs in 2019. Bader then joined Brooklyn during the 2020-21 season as a video assistant and has been with the franchise ever since.

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The Nets went to Barclays Center not to play, but to support the Liberty

Some of the members of the Nets organization went to Barclays Center on Monday to support the WNBA’s New York Liberty.

The Brooklyn Nets are in the middle of their offseason so at the moment, no games are being played for Brooklyn that are going to count. However, with the Nets’ summer just beginning, some members of the team decided to show up at Barclays Center and it wasn’t to play basketball.

In a recent post on the Nets’ “X” account, the team posted some pictures of some of Brooklyn’s team that showed up to the WNBA’s New York Liberty’s 74-63 win over the Seattle Storm on Monday. Some of the players that showed up were guard Mikal Bridges and center Day’Ron Sharpe (pictured on the left of the post).

Not only did some of the players show up in support, but so did newly-hired head coach Jordi Fernandez (pictured on the right) along with some of his assistant coaches. This is not the first time that the Nets have shown support for a Liberty team that is poised to make it back to the Finals for the second time in as many years.

Forward Breanna Stewart, the reigning MVP of the WNBA, put up 16 points and 11 rebounds while guard Sabrina Ionescu dropped 20 points and eight assists to lead New York to a 4-0 record. With their win over the Storm, the Liberty are 4-0 for the first time in 17 years when they began the 2007 season with a 5-0 start before floundering at the end.

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The Nets have to establish an identity during this offseason

After a disappointing 2023-24 season, the Brooklyn Nets have to use this summer to establish an identity under head coach Jordi Fernandez.

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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Nets’ Jordi Fernandez’s time in G League prepared him for HC role

In a interview with Sarah Kustok of YES Network, Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez explained how the G League has prepared him.

The Brooklyn Nets have found the man to lead the team into the next era of the franchise in former Sacramento Kings associate head coach Jordi Fernandez. Fernandez will have an unique experience given that his first time as an NBA head coach will be for a rebuilding Brooklyn franchise, but he feels like he’s ready for the challenge.

Fernandez recently sat down for an exclusive interview with Sarah Kustok of YES Network and one of the topics that came up was what is to come for Fernandez in this spot. Among other things, Fernandez said that he “learned that in the NBA’s G League” in terms of dealing with roster turnover given that is typically the norm with G League teams.

Fernandez, 41, was with the Cleveland Cavaliers’ G League franchise, the Canton Charge, from 2013 to 2016 and he became the head coach of the Charge in 2014 after being an assistant coach in 2013. Fernandez ended his tenure as the head coach of the Charge with a 62-38 record (62.0% winning percentage) and went 5-5 (50.0%) in the playoffs, including advancing to the semi-finals in two of his three seasons.

“There’s a lot of changes in the G League, the roster, how everything works,” Fernandez explained. “So, right there, I learned that I’m a problem solver. Sometimes, problems come your way and you get frustrated with what happened. But, if I didn’t create it, it’s not gonna affect me that much. What I’m going to try to do is figure it out.”

Fernandez sounds like someone who has been there and done that and yet, being a head coach in the NBA will still be a first-time experience for him. However, he has seen a lot of basketball since he began his coaching career at 15 years old and he seems like he already knows who he is. “My job is to be the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets,” Fernandez said.

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Nets rumors: Juwan Howard agrees to be assistant coach

Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported on Friday that the Brooklyn Nets were hiring Juwan Howard as an assistant on Jordi Fernandez’s staff.

The Brooklyn Nets have already taken care of one of their most important tasks for this offseason in hiring Jordi Fernandez as the head coach moving forward. Fernandez is not wasting time building his coaching staff as he has reportedly hired another member of his staff that has some coaching experience as well.

Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported on Friday that Juwan Howard, former head coach of the Michigan Wolverines, has agreed to join the Nets as an assistant coach. Based on reports, Howard is the second person hired to Fernandez’s staff after former Portland Trail Blazers assistant Steve Hetzel was reportedly hired on Sunday.

As Wojnarowski points out in his post, Howard has spent the past five seasons as the head coach of the Wolverines, guiding his alma mater to a 87-72 (54.7 winning percentage) record during a stint that also included two appearances in the NCAA Tournament. Howard also has some coaching experience in the NBA as he spent six seasons as an assistant for the Miami Heat before coaching at Michigan.

Howard, 51, also played in the NBA from 1994 to 2013, similar to every coach that the Nets have had under general manager Sean Marks with the exception of Kenny Atkinson, who did not play in the NBA, but had a 14-year professional basketball career nonetheless. As a coach, Howard had a huge year in 2021 as he won the Associated Press Coach of the Year award after leading the Wolverines to a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament.

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Nets’ Jordi Fernandez reveals why he’s excited about the roster

Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez explained on Wednesday why he’s excited about the roster heading into this offseason.

NEW YORK — Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez presumably had his pick of which NBA team he could have been the head coach for given his resume. Fernandez will be a head coach in the league for the first time in his career and according to him, there’s a reason he chose Brooklyn.

“The youth excites me. Like I said before, when you have a young roster — and talented — that means that you’re going to have those guys for a long time,” Fernandez said during his introductory press conference on Wednesday. He takes over a team that had a disappointing 32-50 record this past season, but has some exciting, young players such as Cam Thomas and Noah Clowney.

“So, you can develop them and then, they can perform at their best,” Fernandez said about the benefit of having young players on a roster, especially during the kind of rebuild that the Nets are going through right now. “And they’re here with you, so that’s extremely exciting, the flexibility that we’ll have, the resources that we have, right? We have a first class-owner, we have a first class management group, front office.”

Of the players under contract for next season as of this writing, eight of them will be 28 years old or younger at the beginning of the 2024-25 campaign. Thomas, 22, led the team in scoring last season, averaging 22.5 points per game for a Brooklyn squad that needed someone to step up on the offensive end to help the team win some games.

Also, towards the end of the season, the Nets saw players like Clowney (19), Jalen Wilson (23), and Trendon Watford (23) have some huge performances for Brooklyn. Free-agency will be interesting for the Nets given that younger players like Watford and Lonnie Walker IV (25) are free-agents this summer.

“So, if you put all that together, I think that that’s a perfect recipe for success. Our roster right now will allow us to do, like I said before, a lot of things, like playing fast — which usually allows you to find the best shot — to be very physical, extremely physical in the regular season. And, obviously, like everybody says, we want to be top-10 offensively, top-10 defensively, and with the roster we have, we’ll be able to do that,” Fernandez said.

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Nets’ Jordi Fernandez believes Nic Claxton can win DPOY someday

Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez is sold on center Nic Claxton to the point that he believes that Claxton will win the DPOY award.

NEW YORK — Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez was formally introduced to the media on Wednesday after being hired as a head coach in the NBA for the first time in his career. Fernandez will have some time before he has to meet with the team during training camp later this summer, but he is excited about coaching a certain player.

“You just said it, right? Nic (Claxton) is a “big” that has defensive versatility. I believe he’ll be Defensive Player of the Year,” Fernandez said during his introductory press conference about the potential that he sees in Claxton, Brooklyn’s center. Claxton is an unrestricted free-agent this offseason so time will tell if he will be back in Brooklyn for Fernandez to coach in the first place.

“For us, he’s a priority in this summer,” Fernandez explained. “The way we can play through him — obviously he’s great in pick and roll, he’s quick to the rim, he puts pressure on the rim — but also his ability to play the dribble-handoff game which, as you guys know, lately in the NBA is a style that is very efficient.”

Claxton, 25, is coming off a 2023-24 season in which he averaged 11.8 points, 9.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists, and 2.1 blocks per game while shooting 62.9% from the field and 55.1% from the free-throw line. One of the constant themes with the Nets over the past two seasons has been expanding Claxton’s responsibilities given how versatile he is on both ends of the floor.

Fernandez communicating that Claxton is a priority for the Nets this offseason makes it appear like he is on board with Claxton coming back to Brooklyn already and could have been a selling point in Fernandez taking the job. He also sees that leaning into what Claxton can do on both ends of the court can have a positive effect on the rest of the team.

“It helps with ball movement. So when everybody touches the ball and everybody’s involved, everybody’s happier. You’re harder to guard because there’s more — you’re not that predictable to just play pick-and-roll. So he fits perfectly, what we want to do moving forward,” Fernandez said.

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Nets’ Jordi Fernandez discusses opportunity to coach in Brooklyn

Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez discussed the opportunity of being a head coach for the first time in his career for the Nets.

NEW YORK — Wednesday marked a special day for the Brooklyn Nets organization as they were finally able to introduce the new head coach of the team: Jordi Fernandez. After much anticipation stemming from reports last week of him winning the job, Fernandez was able to address the media himself.

“It’s the beginning of a new chapter for my family, for myself,” Fernandez said during his introductory press conference on Wednesday at the HSS Training Center. Fernandez comes to the Nets after spending the past two seasons as the associate head coach of the Sacramento Kings.

“What I really loved about the process that I went through to get the job was Joe (Tsai, Brooklyn’s owner) and Sean’s (Marks, Nets general manager) vision,” Fernandez said when asked what stood out to him about the Nets during the interview process. Marks said in a press release on Monday that the search that concluded with the hiring of Fernandez was an “exhaustive” process that took six weeks.

Fernandez has had a unique path as he has been coaching since 2006 with his stint as a player development coach at Impact Basketball being where it all started. Fernandez worked his way up the ladder from player development to where he is now and everything that has happened along the way has prepared him for this next challenge.

“Like Sean said, my experience in the NBA, my journey, starting from player development positions to video, every step of the way, I think that allows me to organize a coaching staff, give a clear message of what process and the structure will be, so we can work with players, I think that is extremely vital,” Fernandez said.

In all, Fernandez will be the fourth head coach for Brooklyn since the beginning of the 2022-23 season. The hope is that Fernandez will stick around for a lot longer than just for a cup of coffee.

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Nets’ head coach Jordi Fernandez to be introduced Wednesday

Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez will be formally introduced to the media on Wednesday morning at 11 am ET. Watch on YES.

The Brooklyn Nets are moving into a new era of the franchise as they officially announced the hiring of Jordi Fernandez as head coach. Fernandez, an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings for the past two seasons, will be formally introduced to the media Wednesday morning.

If you are looking to see the press conference for yourself, you can watch either on the YES Network channel or on the YES app. Starting at 11 AM ET, the media will be able to speak to Fernandez and general manager Sean Marks and ask questions surrounding this hire.

Fernandez emerged as the lead candidate for the job last week, but the Nets did not confirm his hire until Monday because the Kings were still in the playoffs until Friday. It appears that Sacramento held their exit interviews on Monday so that appeared to be the right time for Brooklyn to officially confirm the hiring of Fernandez.

Fernandez comes to a Nets franchise that is coming off a disappointing 32-50 season and is very much a team in flux at the moment. Plenty of people who have crossed paths with Fernandez over the years have good things to say about him so he should start off on the right foot.

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Nets’ Mikal Bridges asked Kings’ De’Aaron Fox about Jordi Fernandez

Prior to Wednesday’s introduction of Jordi Fernandez as head coach, Brooklyn Nets guard Mikal Bridges asked De’Aaron Fox about him.

The Brooklyn Nets have begun the next era of their franchise after officially announcing the hiring of Sacramento Kings assistant coach Jordi Fernandez to lead the team into the future. While Fernandez will be formally introduced to the media on Wednesday morning, there seems to be one player who needed some early intel on the new head coach.

James Ham of TheKingsBeat.com reported on Monday that Nets guard Mikal Bridged reached out to Kings guard De’Aaron Fox for information regarding Fernandez. Fox said this during his exit interview after Sacramento’s season ended on Friday with a 105-98 loss at the New Orleans Pelicans in the Western Conference play-in tournament eighth seed game.

It makes sense that Bridges reached out to Fox about Fernandez given that the former Villanova Wildcat has now played for two different head coaches in less than two seasons in Brooklyn. Fernandez will be the third head coach for the Nets since Bridges came to the team at last season’s deadline, succeeding Jacque Vaughn and interim head coach Kevin Ollie.

Fernandez has spent the past two seasons with the Kings and seems to have been crucial to Fox’s development among other things in his role as an assistant coach. During the 2022-23 season, Fox made third-team All-NBA, made the first All-Star appearance of his career, and won Clutch Player of the Year.

While plenty of people that have crossed paths with Fernandez over the course of his career have nothing but good things to say about him, the local New York media will have their chance on Wednesday to get to know what makes Fernandez tick. As that relates to Bridges, he will have to adjust to playing for a new head coach once again, but Fernandez could work wonders for everyone in the franchise.

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