Analyzing Nets Head Coach Jordi Fernandez After the Recent Firings

The NBA coaching landscape is going through a major crisis due to the recent firings over the past month. The series of changes has an effect on everyone around the league, including Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez.

Job security in the NBA is practically nonexistent. The recent head coach firings around the NBA have had a profoundly negative effect on the league, starting with the Sacramento Kings firing head coach Mike Brown earlier in the season. The result was in spite of Brown leading the team to the postseason in 2023 while winning the Coach of the Year award.

Months later, the Memphis Grizzlies fired Taylor Jenkins with just nine games left in the regular season, followed by the Denver Nuggets letting go of Mike Malone less than two weeks later. Now, the Phoenix Suns have just dismissed Mike Budenholzer after a disastrous 36-46 season in which they missed the postseason altogether. They now join one of four teams in need of a head coach, two of which are gearing up for a potential playoff run.

The dismissals are a testament to the power of the players in the modern NBA. Players are making more money than ever, which ensures security not just financially but in power. Lately, we've seen more coaches to blame for the poor performances of players than ever before, and it's getting out of hand.

Organizations used to give coaches time to develop a roster, letting the right group of players come in before the staff would find a way to make it work. Impatience has plagued teams and fanbases, and God forbid a team doesn't immediately compete for a title or win multiple after making it to the mountaintop, or else the men on the sidelines are ousted before players are moved.

The Nuggets are the perfect example of this sort of impatience. Malone was fired less than 20 months after winning the 2023 NBA Finals, securing his legacy as the greatest coach in franchise history. The assumption was that he would be in Denver for at least another five years.

Instead, the Nuggets decided to give Malone the boot right before the most important part of the season. Funny enough, Denver still finished with 50 wins. Were there holes in the roster? Sure, but that's exactly the point. Coaches will get ousted before the obvious problems in the makeup of the rotation get fixed.

Back to the Nets, where does Fernandez come in? For starters, he just witnessed four firings at his position throughout his first season in Brooklyn, which goes to show how little job security there is in the NBA. It doesn't exactly help that the Nets are not expected to win much for the next few seasons.

The Nets, specifically general Sean Marks and owner Joe Tsai, need to have patience with Fernandez over the next few seasons. He's already shown flashes of impact, as Brooklyn was expected to win less than 20 games. It surpassed that expectation in February.

As the NBA Draft sits a little over two months away, the Nets will now focus on revamping the roster and building a young core for the future. Fernandez is seemingly on their timeline, and the hope is that he doesn't end up ousted for the wrong reasons.