Jordi Fernandez wasn’t in Denver for the coronation, but he helped steer the Nuggets toward the throne.
During his six years on Michael Malone’s staff, en route to his own head coaching job in Brooklyn, he left an indelible imprint on players.
“No good memories,” Michael Porter Jr. said, straight-faced. “Not a single one.”
Kidding.
“He was here when I first got here. He was a defensive coach at the time. He really paid attention to me and kind of saw my potential,” Porter told The Denver Post. “Even when I was coming in with an injury, he believed in me, and I was one of his guys that he wanted to really help. … He was intentional about developing the relationship with players.”
Fernandez returned to Colorado as a head coach for the first time on Friday night, leading an injury-depleted Nets squad firmly in rebuild mode. His former players and colleagues caught up with him before and after the game in the hallways underneath Ball Arena, a series of reunions that included one with Nikola Jokic, who beamed when bringing up Fernandez’s family.
“His daughter turned 7 I think today,” Jokic said after the Nuggets’ 124-105 win.
“I think he’s doing a good job. I think guys are listening. Guys are playing hard for him. I think that’s really important for a coach. … They are trying to do the right thing. They are trying to do what he is probably telling them. So they have some kind of system, and it’s really cool to see. They’re in the beginning of the process, of course. Hopefully, they can grow.”
Fernandez, 42, first got to know Malone in 2009 when he joined the Cavaliers as a player development coach on Mike Brown’s staff. Malone was an assistant coach in Cleveland at the time, and he was struck by Fernandez’s “enthusiasm for the game; his passion for the game.” Fernandez went on to coach the G League’s Canton Charge; Malone had a cup of coffee as Sacramento’s head coach before ending up in Denver. He hired Fernandez in 2016, one season into his Nuggets tenure.
“Every year that I was here helped prepare me for this job,” Fernandez said Friday. “Michael Malone, the organization, the coaching staff, ownership, front office. Every experience here. It was one of the reasons I’m in the position that I’m in right now. I was able to experience a young team that the majority of the guys were drafted, that we built into a playoff team, made it to the conference finals and then won a championship. So the process really helped me to understand how things work. It’s never going to be the same (in every situation), and it’s never going to be perfect. But going through it here and being part of it I think was a great experience for me as a coach.”
His 2022 departure for Sacramento to become Brown’s associate head coach turned out to be unlucky timing. The Nuggets won their first NBA title the following season, with longtime Fernandez pupils such as Jokic, Porter and Jamal Murray making up the championship core.
That meant the pinnacle of Fernandez’s time in Denver occurred, well, away from Denver. The Nuggets took their first major step by reaching the Western Conference Finals in the COVID-19 bubble. “There’s the ups and downs with wins and losses and frustrations and happiness,” he said.
But his most cherished memories are not solely professional. Denver remains a sentimental former home for a coach who has represented as wide an array of places as anyone in the sport. Fernandez is from Spain. He used to be an assistant coach for Spain’s national team, and for Nigeria’s. Most recently, he took over as Canada’s head coach for the 2023 FIBA World Cup and 2024 Paris Olympics. Colorado still stands out because “six years of my life with my family were here,” he said. “My kids were born here.”
Fernandez spent two seasons with the Kings before taking the top job in Brooklyn, where he has navigated constant roster instability in his debut season. The Nets traded veteran guard Dennis Schroder to Golden State in mid-December. Two weeks later, they traded Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton to the Lakers, taking back D’Angelo Russell (and stockpiling draft picks). Their injury report on Friday was eight names long.
A pursuit of a coveted top-three pick seems to be in Brooklyn’s near future, despite an impressive start to the season that earned Fernandez recognition. He’s faced with the precarious balance between developing winning habits in his players while his team likely loses a lot of games.
“(He has) just a hunger and an appetite for learning and growing, and his ability to just relate and get along with the players,” Malone said. “You could tell it was just a matter of time when he was given that opportunity. … Been a tough year for them, but I think when you look at everything they’ve gone through this year — the trades, the players and all that — the most important thing for Jordi and any young coach is to establish a culture. And then as you add pieces to that culture, then the wins will come.”
As warmly received as Fernandez was by old friends at Ball Arena, Malone’s competitiveness has rubbed off on him. The 42-year-old sounded a lot like his former boss before the game on Friday when asked about all the catching up he would be doing throughout the night, all the congratulatory handshakes he would be receiving.
“Once you do your job, there’s no friends,” Fernandez said. “And the same way I want to beat them, they’re going to want to beat me. I know for sure that Michael Malone feels the same way.”
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