SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — More than a decade ago, Mike Brown – then the coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers – saw a young intern named Jordi Fernandez working with his son, Elijah, at a basketball training program in Las Vegas. As he sat back and watched, Brown was impressed how Fernandez trained his son.
He noticed Fernandez's patience and the ability to make his son feel engaged and have ownership of his workout, while also learning new things himself. Brown eventually hired Fernandez as a player development coach in 2009, starting the track for Fernandez that currently has him in his first year as coach of the Brooklyn Nets.
On Sunday, mentor faced pupil for the first time in Sacramento, when Fernandez's Nets played the Brown-led Kings. Fernandez was Brown’s associate head coach for the last two seasons, helping the Kings to a 94-70 record and reach a playoff berth in 2023 for the first time in 16 seasons.
“He’s a mentor, but he’s more than that,” Fernandez said before the game. “He’s like family to me. I would not be in this position without him. And life is one big circle, right? He’s the one that brought me here, and then years later, we were back together.”
Fernandez said Brown taught him how to treat people, and how to deal with a stressful job by focusing on what he believes is best for the team.
“This is a hard enough business, that you have to handle the wins and losses — but it’s so emotional that when you work for a person. That’s what I’ve learned the most, is the way he’s treated people,” Fernandez said.
Brown believes the 41-year-old Fernandez is the perfect fit to lead a young, re-tooling Nets team that entered Sunday with a 6-10 record.
“Going through that process — if that’s what they’re doing — it can be a lot of ups and downs, and so you need a guy that’s going to be steady and have good relationships with everybody, keep the spirits up,” Brown said.
Fernandez coached the Cavaliers’ G-League team, the Canton Charge, for a couple seasons, and spent six seasons as an assistant with the Denver Nuggets before moving to Sacramento in 2022. Fernandez, who was born and raised in Spain, also coaches the Canadian men’s national team, which he led to a bronze medal in the Basketball World Cup last year.
A little more than a month into his first season, Fernandez is getting buy-in from his players, which is key for a franchise trying to find its identity under a new coach.
“He has them playing really, really, really hard,” Brown said. “They’re doing some good things on both sides of the ball. But I can only imagine the success that he’s going to have, especially given some time once they figure out which direction they may or may not want to go.”
Niceties aside, once their teams step on the court, both Brown and Fernandez’s competitive natures will kick in.
“I just want to kick his ass and then give him a hug afterwards,” Brown said lightheartedly.
Fernandez responded: “That’s great. I’ll take the hug. I don’t take the first part. We’ll try to do the same thing for sure.”
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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba
Eric He, The Associated Press
