After suffering through tanking seasons in his first two years as a head coach, Jordi Fernández and his staff were all rewarded with extensions from the Nets.
It’s one thing for Nets owner Joe Tsai and GM Sean Marks to say they believe in Fernández, another to show it. And this is the latter.
“I appreciate it,” said Fernández, adding, “I’d sign right now to do it for the rest of my career.”
There was never any danger of Fernández being sacrificed after tanking, the way David Fizdale was in the Garden, but the faith from his bosses matters. What the Spaniard said today isn’t about relaxing, but repaying that faith, and redoubling his efforts to go from tanking to competing.
“Trust, support and belief, my experience here has been [great]. I couldn’t ask for anything better from ownership and management and the group we work with. And getting rewarded with the extension means the world to me and to my family, but also to the coaches,” Fernández said. “Now it’s our time to keep working hard, and take those next steps. … We all believe what our steps of improvement are.
“It’s very different when somebody says we support you, but when they do it with an action like this, how much it means for us and how appreciative not just me but the staff, that gets us more excited toward the summer. … We’re all excited to be back in the gym, to go through the lottery, to go through the draft, free agency.”
The Nets will have a lot of avenues to improve — and have a lot of improving to do.
Fernández went just 46-118 as the Nets tanked their way into consecutive lottery picks. Now they’ll go into next month’s lottery with the third-best odds — a 40.1 percent chance at landing a top three pick in this loaded draft.
Throw in over $30 million in cap space — top five in the league — and the Nets will have not just an opportunity to take a step forward, but a responsibility to do so.
That’s something Fernández and his newly extended staff are looking forward to.
“It’s excitement. And it’s not time to relax, it’s actually time to get more excited and work harder, and to give back to Joe and Sean for the trust that they put into our coaching staff,” Fernández said. “The way we see it is, oh, we get rewarded with this, and now we’re gonna give you even more.”
The Nets have a big coaching staff — one of the league’s largest — with top assistant Steve Hetzel as well as assistants Juwan Howard, Travis Bader, Deividas Dulkys, Dutch Gaitley, Jay Hernandez, Connor Griffin, Ryan Forehan-Kelly and Corey Vinson all extended en masse.
“We have the youngest roster in the NBA, and having a coaching staff that is equipped to do this is very important,” said Fernández, who was hosting a celebration of Catalonian holiday Sant Jordi Day for third graders at nearby P.S. 1.
After spending this past season coaching the league’s youngest team, Fernández and his family spent Thursday distributing roses and books — a customary holiday tradition — and participated in a read-aloud for even younger kids.
But now, after a short offseason break, it’ll be back to working out draft prospects and prepping for the lottery and developing this season’s five first-round rookies.
“Continuity is important, but so is growth,” Fernández said. “The same way that we wanna invest in our players, we want to invest in our coaches. We believe in how much those guys can develop and take next steps. That’s part of life. When you feel valued and you feel recognized, that’s how much more you can bring.
“And you’re gonna keep challenging yourself to bring it. That’s what this league is about, if you think about it. It’s about being competitive. You may get this extension now, but now you’re gonna be competitive because you want to prove yourself and do better and bring it. So it’s very exciting.”
