Jordi Fernández arrived in Brooklyn with a diverse global résumé, highlighted by extensive coaching experience in the G League, NBA and on the international stage. Along the way, he built a strong reputation as a player developer and defensive-minded strategist, and those qualities became evident in his first season as Brooklyn’s head coach.
The Nets may have finished 26-56 and outside the playoff picture, but Fernández’s first season still carried the feel of a step forward. Brooklyn played with grit and edge on most nights, refusing to resemble the tanking team many expected. Even as injuries and roster turnover took their toll, the Nets leaned into a connected style built on ball movement, pace control and defensive effort.
More than the numbers, though, the season’s true progress was in the culture Fernández and his staff began to build, where accountability, buy-in and belief gave the year its sense of purpose. The biggest challenge entering Year 2, beyond pushing the Nets back into playoff contention, is integrating a young core of five first-rounders while continuing to reshape the team’s identity.
“Player development is going to be important,” Fernandez told reporters after June’s draft. “We’ve been very diligent. The coaching staff has done a great job making our guys work, and those guys have improved. And we believe they’ll do the same thing.”
After star-chasing gambles that defined the franchise’s last half-decade failed, Brooklyn finally pivoted to patience, becoming the first team in NBA history to draft five first-rounders in a single night: BYU’s Egor Demin (No. 8), France’s Nolan Traoré (No. 19), North Carolina’s Drake Powell (No. 22), Israel’s Ben Saraf (No. 26) and Michigan’s Danny Wolf (No. 27).
Executives laughed. Agents rolled their eyes. To many around the league, Brooklyn’s plan looked more like a punchline than a path forward. Four of the five selections were guards with overlapping skill sets and questionable shooting. Some saw the decision to stockpile picks rather than package them for a star as a missed opportunity.
In Bleacher Report’s winners-and-losers roundup of the 2025 NBA Draft, the Nets landed in both categories. If even a few of their selections grow into steady rotation pieces, it’s a win. But trying to develop five rookies at once could be difficult in today’s NBA.
“If even two of Egor Demin, Nolan Traoré, Drake Powell, Ben Saraf and Danny Wolf look like solid NBA players, this draft will be pretty easy to look at as a success,” Bleacher Report’s Andy Bailey wrote. “Any more than that, and it’ll be a smashing one.”
For Fernández, the job is about translation, taking his reputation as a player developer and applying it to the largest rookie class in NBA history. Brooklyn’s draft wasn’t simply about adding bodies; it was the clearest signal yet that the franchise has committed to playing the long game.
Whether that patience pays off — and whether the Nets can maximize their unprecedented rookie haul — remains to be seen. What’s certain is that no test of Fernández’s player-development skills has ever been greater.
The difficulty of what Brooklyn is attempting can’t be overstated. Young players need steady reps to develop, yet carving out meaningful minutes for five rookies alongside established veterans feels nearly impossible. Four of the five are ball handlers, too, meaning they’ll be competing for the same backcourt opportunities — a dynamic that could stunt individual growth.
“All these guys can really pass the ball,” Fernandez said. “All those paint touches and ball reversals, it just helps you when you have not only primary ball handlers, but also secondary ball handlers and all these guys can do it. So, it’s all a positive. There’s no negatives here.”
Even rebuilding teams like the Nets face pressure from fans to remain competitive. Leaning on five inexperienced rookies makes that far more difficult. It’s hard enough for one rookie to adjust quickly, let alone five. The steep learning curve almost guarantees mistakes that cost wins, and if the group doesn’t flash early promise, players risk being buried on the depth chart or moved, undermining the team’s long-term vision.
Still, there are reasons to believe Fernández and his staff might just pull off the impossible. In Denver, he was part of the group that helped shape Nikola Jokić, Jamal Murray and now-Net Michael Porter Jr. into stars. In Sacramento, he earned a reputation for his hands-on development with guards and wings, building trust and confidence in young players like Davion Mitchell and Keegan Murray.
During his international stints, Fernández was tasked with fast-tracking young players while keeping veteran groups competitive. The same balancing act now awaits him in Brooklyn, where he must bring the team’s rookie class up to speed without letting the team regress. And even with a depleted roster last season, the Nets managed to play disciplined, unselfish basketball. That kind of culture is essential for bringing rookies along, and with a front office unified on the long-term plan, Brooklyn’s newcomers won’t be left sorting through mixed signals.
The Nets are attempting something no NBA team has ever tried, an undertaking many around the league view as impractical at best and reckless at worst. If the experiment fails, they risk stalling their rebuild, wasting a historic draft class and resetting once again without a clear path back to contention.
But here’s the question few seem willing to consider: what if it works? What if Fernández actually finds a way to make it all click? If he can turn five rookies into something more, Brooklyn’s gamble could redefine what a modern NBA rebuild looks like, and turn an experiment mocked in June into a blueprint others will try to follow.
