Just 15 games into this season, Jordi Fernandez’s Nets have an identity.
“We’re gonna pick up and guard, we’re gonna ball-pressure. We’re gonna shoot threes and we’re gonna run,” said Cam Johnson late Tuesday night after Brooklyn’s win over Charlotte. “… I think we’ve done a good job of that so far; not perfect, room for improvement. But I’m excited about the direction this team is headed.”
If you entered this season with dreams of Cooper Flagg or Ace Bailey in Brooklyn, you may not share Johnson’s excitement about the Nets’ direction.
They enter Friday’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers at 6-9, nowhere near the race for Ace or Cooper.
“They’re feisty,” one opposing Eastern Conference executive said this week. “If you overlook them based on the roster, you will get beat.”
You couldn’t say the same of the 2023-24 Nets. They finished the season with 32 wins and many players looking forward to their summer vacations.
This year, Fernandez’s first as head coach, has a different feel.
“We’re not going to back down from anybody,” Johnson said after the Nets had to be separated from their opponents in games against New York and Charlotte.
“We’re not out here looking to just pick fights and be dumb, but we’re not going to back down.”
The Nets face a Sixers team mired in the kind of controversy you saw in Brooklyn often during the Kevin Durant/Kyrie Irving era. The Sixers are 2-11; their star center, Joel Embiid, has been suspended for shoving a local columnist. He’s also reportedly been called out in a team meeting for being late to work.
(For what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone is hitting the panic button in Philadelphia yet. Amid the noise over the team meeting, members of the Sixers continue to express confidence that the team will be fine once they are fully healthy.)
Back to the Nets: They seem to have gotten it right with Fernandez. The first-year head coach has gotten buy-in from his players. He seems to hold them accountable while also having their backs, which is a delicate balance in this sport.
Case in point: Fernandez wanted the Nets to foul when they were up three late against the Hornets. Brooklyn didn’t execute his directive, but Fernandez wasn’t upset about it.
“We give them rules but then I tell them, ‘You do it if you’re comfortable doing it. I trust you.’ So if you feel like you can do it, do it,” Fernandez said. “If not, we’re just gonna get the stop.”
That kind of implicit trust seems to land well with the players.
“He’s a helluva coach,” said Christian Watford. “He coaches (us) hard and (pays close) attention to detail.”
The details for the Nets may change in early February. There will be plenty of speculation about trades of players like Dennis Schroder, Dorian Finney-Smith, Cam Thomas and others. Maybe the Nets finally trade Finney-Smith for a few second-round picks? Maybe they move Schroder for a first-rounder?
Those are questions for another day. Right now, the Nets are in the early stages of establishing a new culture under Fernandez. And players are enjoying themselves in the moment as opposed to worrying about their futures.
“We’re a group that gets along well with each other. And that’s important. So as long as we’re together, we’re going to fight for wins and we’re going to enjoy representing Brooklyn,” Johnson said. “And whatever the future holds, it holds.”
This group may look and sound like the 2016 Nets team. That team, under current GM Sean Marks and then-head coach Kenny Atkinson, was also filled with players on their second or third teams. They found their footing in Brooklyn and established the ground floor of a winning program (the difference between now and 2016, of course, is that the Nets have significant draft capital at their disposal).
Maybe we’re seeing the first year of that cycle play out again with Fernandez on the sideline.
“It does remind me of them,” the opposing Eastern Conference executive said. “They play the right way under Jordi. They definitely made the right call on the coach.”