The Nets are still learning Jordi Fernandez. The same way he’s learning them — and learning the ropes as a rookie head coach.
The two most frequent, and apt, descriptions of Fernandez are that he is direct and detailed — even as he finds his sea legs as the first Spaniard ever to become an NBA head coach.
“I’m still figuring out my life, yes,” Fernandez admitted. “It’s all your day-to-day changes. It’s not just basketball: It’s the amount of people you have to talk to. Blessed to talk to [the media] every day, sometimes twice a day, which makes it even better. Those things take time out of your day, and it’s now part of my life. So [I’m] still learning. You live and learn. Got a new job, I’m a rookie, and it’s part of life.”
Fernandez, voted the top assistant in the NBA by league general managers before last season, got his first head coaching gig in April. And within two months, before he’d ever coached a game, he saw Brooklyn trade away Mikal Bridges and dive headlong into a rebuild.