It will be more than a month before Brooklyn begins training camp, until new head coach Jordi Fernandez has a chance to get his hands on his players for good.
But if we talk about Fernandez’s new players, we can already get an idea of how the Nets will play next season. His plan of attack?
Attack.
“Play fast, play together, simply” Jalen Wilson, sophomore forward “You have to play fast, but also know what you’re doing. I think intelligence of where you are on the field and understanding defenses, different things like that, play a role.”
“But I think the main thing is to play fast, play with confidence. Not just play calmly and not be uncertain about anything. But everything has to be full speed and understand that you have to attack in all areas… whether it’s shooting, whether it’s dribbling, whether it’s finding an open teammate, whether it’s running down the court and sprinting to the corner, those different things.”
As befits a rebuilding team lacking top-tier talent, the Nets hired a rookie head coach in Fernandez, who was known for development and defenseand has built a staff that fits this philosophy.
In games, they hope to run again and again.
In practice, this means they will have to drill again and again.
Their rhythm will have to come from training, otherwise it will be messy and chaotic, rather than efficient and dangerous.
“Yeah, I would say reps,” Wilson said of what the team has emphasized. “Reps in practice, before Summer League, before Summer League, and reps now.
“It was mostly about doing uphill and downhill drills, being in the right spot, doing everything at full speed and high intensity, not taking anything for granted and understanding that if you slack off in practice, you’re not going to be at full speed in the game. And when you’re at full speed in the game, you’ve got to be ready and prepared.”
Make no mistake, no amount of preparation will make Brooklyn a title contender this season. That window closed the moment they traded superstar Kevin Durant for Mikal Bridges, and — after a disappointing 32-50 record last season — it was all but closed when Nets owner Joe Tsai and general manager Sean Marks officially announced a rebuild by trading Bridges across the East River to the rival Knicks.
Getting five first-round picks and a first-round trade for a player who has never made the All-Star Game can only be considered a success. It essentially means they turned a 34-year-old who wanted out and two trades into seven first-round picks, two more trades, Cam Johnson, and the return of the rights to their own first-round picks in 2025 and 2026. Bleacher Report upgraded Durant’s deal to A++++.
What those choices bring us is a longer-term question. In the immediate term, the Nets will almost certainly be on the trouble bus.
They are projected to win an NBA-worst 19.5 games next season. by all major bookmakersAs Fernandez, 41, begins to lay the foundation for the culture he hopes to build, the Spaniard will have to rely on the Nets’ young legs to outwork and outwork the teams’ older veterans.
“We want to play fast and we want to play hard,” said Noah Clowney, a second-year pro who is just 20 years old. “We want to be disruptive. We know we have to be a great defensive team if we’re going to have a chance to win games, and that’s the reality. Nobody needs to sugarcoat us. We understand that.”
The Nets won’t be able to score points to win despite the emergence of young guard Cam Thomas, who averaged a team-best 22.5 points last season. Their offensive rating was just 23rd in the NBA last season, and 25th after Kevin Ollie took over during the All-Star break.
Brooklyn will be tested even more offensively next season with Bridges at the Garden, All-Star point guard Ben Simmons still a question mark if injured and veteran forwards Johnson and Dorian Finney-Smith potentially on the trading block at any time.
The Nets will have to rely on the other end of the court.
Fernandez is considered a top defensive coach and was Sacramento’s de facto defensive coordinator under Mike Brown. He helped the Kings improve significantly in that regard, going from 24th in defensive rating in 2022-23 to 14th last season without any significant roster improvements.
Fernandez spent much of the summer Coach of the Canadian team for the Paris Olympic Gameswhere the team went unbeaten in the so-called Group of Death, largely thanks to its defence, before losing to hosts France in the quarter-finals earlier this month.
As Brooklyn begins to prepare for next season, however long and arduous it may be, Fernandez has recruited assistants Dutch Gaitley and Deividas Dulkys to accompany him from Sacramento. They will help him try to get these young Nets to take more pride in their defense in one-on-one matchups.
“He wants guys to be more dominant with the ball, take their matchups more personally,” Keon Johnson said. “And then you also have to have the help behind you, knowing that if you try to take chances or even if you get beat, you have guys behind you knowing that they’re going to make a play behind you.
“[So]winning from a defensive standpoint, just because for me it’s something that I rely on, and it’s just something that I naturally watch every time I get a chance to turn on the television. So just seeing how he got [Canada] playing defensively and in the system together, I mean, I see that translating to Brooklyn.
New addition
Brooklyn has added Drew Nicholas to its recruiting department, by HoopshypeThe Long Island native spent the last two seasons as the director of scouting for the Denver Nuggets.
