In Rough Business, Nets Fernandez Will Come Out Of Lost-Cause Season With Enhanced Reputation

Jerome Miron—Imagn Images

Now that the Nets are locked into the sixth-best odds for the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery, is it ok to start rooting for them to win?

Brooklyn (26-53) has three games remaining, none of which are of any relevance after Toronto’s rout over Charlotte on Wednesday night pushed the Raptors to an insurmountable four wins ahead (behind?) in the reverse standings.

However, you could tell that every game means something to Jordi Fernandez, the Nets rookie Head Coach who has endured an endless stream of bad tidings this season with all the injuries and management’s efforts to lower the team’s win count through trades and shutdowns. On December 15, the Nets specifically traded for out-for-the-season De’Anthony Melton to get worse. The tank degree may not have been executed to some fans’ satisfaction, but it sure made for a miserable season for those that watched, including coaches.

Yet Fernandez has come out the other side with an enhanced reputation for his coaching acumen, not an easy feat for those in this situation. It’s why I’d like to see Fernandez end the season on a high note, even if the results are indeed meaningless.

HoopsHype.com’s Michael Scotto asked Fernandez after Tuesday’s triumph over the superior tankers from New Orleans about the difficulties of life in his profession, even for those that work in winning programs like Memphis and Denver. Fernandez gave a deadpan answer as if it were scripted by the Nets PR Department.

“I love our owner (Joe Tsai),” Fernandez said. “I love my GM (Sean Marks) and the people I work for. I’m only a positive person, so I’m going to come into work every day thinking that I’m going to be here for 15 years, and whenever I want to go back to Spain and retire, that’s how I feel I’m going to show up to work every day.”

I’m not here to judge the veracity of those statements—I would think he is indeed appreciative for his first NBA head coaching opportunity and understands the business’ rough nature. He was also allegedly briefed on the franchise’s direction when he was hired last April 22, so the season’s results shouldn’t be a total shock to his system. However, it is one thing to go through figurative hell once; how’s he going to feel if he sees himself stuck in a losing loop? If he ever then becomes a casualty, HC job No. 2 might take a while. Ask Marks’ first HC hire Kenny Atkinson.

The Nets not only regained the rights to their own first round pick in this Draft with last offseason’s trade with Houston, they also got back their 2026 pick too, giving them an incentive to proceed to Tank 2.0 if this offseason doesn’t yield a transformational acquisition.

Marks has every reason to be patient. If he doesn’t like the offseason landscape in terms of deals to be made, he can hold onto his swath of Draft picks and ample salary cap space for another year. From all indications, he has Tsai’s trust, which is a rather unique situation given Marks’ unimpressive 320-395 record with one playoff series win during his nine seasons as a Nets executive. Normally, GMs with such low achievement despite running through six HC changes (including interims), not to mention one ownership change, do not last that long, which is a testament to Marks’ political skills. No wonder he holds the record for the fewest minutes played in an NBA career that lasted ten or more seasons.

One thing you should understand about pro basketball, which is contrary to the notions we all learned about team sports growing up, is that not everyone automatically shares a full commitment to winning. Keeping your job might be the priority for some, which can lead to clashing viewpoints between those in management versus the coaching staff.

Sometimes, the stories I hear get as petty as how Hollywood depicts high school cafeterias, flush with jealousies and power dynamics. As noted above, Memphis and Denver are playoff-bound in a tough Western Conference, yet their HCs were let go with mere weeks left in the season.

And those pink slips weren’t necessarily the work of rash billionaire owners, as some would like you to believe. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst commented about how the Kroenke family, with their conglomeration of valuable sports properties, rarely fires coaches, especially when it would mean they’d be paying them to not coach. They made an exception with the Nuggets, axing both GM Calvin Booth and HC Michael Malone, who together led the team to the 2023 NBA Championship. The two, though, were often at odds over everything from roster construction to the way players were used, creating tension that started to bleed into the rest of the organization, according to The Athletic. Hence, the early decision instead of waiting until after the season.

In Memphis, management dismissed five of HC Taylor Jenkins’ assistants after last season’s injury-ravaged campaign, not only forcing staff he didn’t know upon him but then also entrusting them with designing a new offense. That wasn’t a good sign for Jenkins’ longevity on his job. Ironically, the hired lead offensive assistant was one of the coaches the Grizzlies kicked to the curb with Jenkins on March 28.

Now, I haven’t heard of any nonsense of this sort going down in Brooklyn this season, but Marks is known for his preference for making basketball decisions a “collaborative process” (his words). In the past, he has placed assistants on a HC’s staff, though that’s fairly common.

However, Marks’ apparent micromanagement is one reason why I believe every HC he hired owed their careers to him, either as a first-timer or, in Jacque Vaughn’s case, a retread coming off a lousy experience. Of the 2020 candidates, strong coaches who do things their own way like Tom Thibodeau and Ty Lue never stood a chance, in my opinion. Marks chose Steve Nash, who never coached before at any level.

Fernandez may be an NBA rookie, but he had serious credentials. He paid his dues to work up the coaching ladder to become Sacramento’s lead assistant and was the HC for Team Canada during its run to the bronze medal at the 2023 FIBA World Cup. Just speculating here, but Tsai may have pushed Marks in this hire over one of his San Antonio connections like James Borrego.

Well, this time it looks like Marks pulled a straight flush, at least so far. Fernandez has been everything this team needed in the moment, simultaneously encouraging and demanding his young and veteran players to buy into his messaging to play the right way. The Nets’ offense, with so little individual talent at their disposal, is at least well designed to create open three-point looks. The team gets after it on defense, though the size and speed discrepancies often beat them in the end.

The next step is keeping Fernandez happy on the job. You could tell by his body language that the long losing streaks sometimes wore on him as the season droned on. I’m guessing he knows how much his marketability shot up this season and that it possibly won’t get higher with another dismal campaign. That makes him ripe for poaching—Nets fans have seen this act play out before, most recently with Jason Kidd in 2014 when he lost a power play against former GM Billy King—even if it comes with compensation costs.

To be clear, I don’t have any knowledge that such a scenario is being considered by any party. Publicly, Fernandez is on board with the Brooklyn rebuild plan of undetermined length. That might include another season of 24 players seeing action (I did a double take when I saw who leads the team in total minutes—it’s Jalen Wilson; Keon Johnson is second), 41 different starting lineups, and nightly adjustments to his rotation because he doesn’t know who’s in and who’s out.

Whether or not he is speaking truthfully, it sounds like a mentally crushing exercise for someone with Fernandez’s desire to win. So maybe root for him and the Nets on Thursday night when they host the Hawks. I don’t know that a few meaningless victories will change anyone’s worldview, but it couldn’t hurt.