Nets could be getting a huge difference-maker in Jordi Fernandez

The Brooklyn Nets are only in the beginning of their offseason following a disappointing 2023-24 season in which the team did not meet its own goal of making the postseason. One of the main areas for Brooklyn to address was who would be their head coach for next season and they took care of that quickly.

As Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported earlier this week, the Nets are expected to hire Sacramento Kings assistant coach Jordi Fernandez to be their head coach moving forward. Fernandez has been one of the bigger names in the NBA in terms of guys who could be getting their first head-coaching job soon and plenty of people in the NBA have something to say about Fernandez.

CJ Holmes of the New York Daily News recently wrote a feature on Fernandez in which he gave a lot of background information on Fernandez as well as testimonials from some of the people that Fernandez has come across during his coaching career. All of the following quotes will be from Holmes’ piece as all of the people have spoken to the NYDN for the story.

“He just has a really good feel for people. He can read a room very carefully. He has incredible relationships with the players, can really relate to them, and I believe that with what I know about him as a person,” Joe Abunassar of IMPACT Basketball said of Fernandez’s people skills. Fernandez spent some time with Abunassar while he was a coach at the Impact Basketball Academy from 2006 to 2009.

“He’s ready for anything. He’s ready for any head job in the NBA. So, whoever gets him will be very, very lucky to have him as their head coach,” Sacramento Kings head coach Mike Brown said of Fernandez. Fernandez became the associate head coach of the Kings heading into the 2022-23 season and has been working with Brown for the past two seasons.

Sacramento is now out of the playoffs after losing in the eighth place game on Friday at the New Orleans Pelicans so a formal announcement of Fernandez being Brooklyn’s head coach is expected any day now. Once that announcement is made, Nets fans can be happy knowing that Fernandez is spoken highly of from plenty of people throughout his journey to get to this point.

Story originally appeared on Nets Wire