Nets officially announce hire of Jordi Fernandez as head coach

The Brooklyn Nets are in the middle of an important offseason for their franchise as they look to make enough improvements to make it back to the playoffs next season. While Brooklyn has plenty of matters they have to address this summer, the franchise was finally able to make an important decision official.

The Nets made the hiring of Sacramento Kings assistant coach Jordi Fernandez as head coach of the team official on Monday after media and fans alike had to wait for some time for the news to be confirmed.

Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported on Apr. 15 that Brooklyn was expected to hire Fernandez as the head coach, but given that Fernandez’s Kings were in the playoffs at the time, Brooklyn couldn’t officially announced the hire until Sacramento was eliminated from postseason contention.

The Kings won their first game of the Western Conference play-in tournament on Tuesday against the Golden State Warriors 118-94, but lost at the New Orleans Pelicans in the Western Conference eighth seed play-in game on Friday 105-98, ending their hopes of getting to the playoffs this season.

Fernandez will be the 24th head coach in the Nets’ franchise history and per team policy, the team has not released the terms of the contract. In the context of foreign NBA head coaches, those who are either of a different nationality than American or were born somewhere other than America, Fernandez will be one of four current head coaches that fit that category.

The other three head coaches are: Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr (born in Lebanon), Houston Rockets head coach Ime Udoka (Nigerian), and Toronto Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic (Serbian). In addition to that, Fernandez will be the first head coach in NBA history to have been born in Spain.

Story originally appeared on Nets Wire