The Nets have already found their new head coach: Sacramento assistant Jordi Fernandez.
The news was first reported by ESPN, and confirmed by The Post.
The move came just a day after the Nets lost their season finale in Philadelphia but over a month after general manager Sean Marks and Nets team owner Joe Tsai began an exhaustive league-wide search.
And after interviewing 10-12 candidates, they settled on the one NBA GMs labeled the best assistant in the entire league.
“I think that will happen here sooner rather than later,” unrestricted free agent-to-be Nic Claxton had said Monday of the coaching hire. “I just want transparency, somebody that’s going to keep it real with me, just look at me as a man and just tell me whatever the plan will be, and we’ll go from there.”
Now where the Nets go is forward with their fifth coach since they fired Kenny Atkinson in 2020, acquiescing to stars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. Their much-vaunted culture hasn’t quite been the same since. Ironically, in many ways, Ferandez may be similar to Atkinson.
The 41-year-old Fernandez — a native of Barcelona, Spain — has been seen as one of the fastest-rising assistants in the league.
This season’s annual NBA GM survey saw Fernandez voted the “best assistant coach in the NBA.” Runner-up Kevin Young, an assistant with Phoenix, was also a finalist for the Nets job, as was former NBA Coach of the Year and 2021 champion Mike Budenholzer.
Budenholzer has the longest list of accomplishments but is also believed to have the longest list of demands. He also is hard-driving and is viewed in some circles as abrasive. Fernandez is considered to be a player’s coach.
Tsai notably sat courtside for the Nets’ 107-77 beating at the hands of Fernandez’s Kings on April 7, and it may have made an impression.
“[I want] probably what everybody else wants in their coach, being very detailed and a players coach, as well,” Mikal Bridges said. “That’s the biggest thing too, just talking to guys and getting feedback. But more just — for me personally — the detailed aspect, being detailed on both ends. You want to play, have that moment in the season where you’re not really thinking anymore. You know what we’re doing offensively and defensively, it’s just that free mindset to go out there.
“That’s probably the biggest thing, just to know at one point in the season where I feel like it’s just second nature, just knowing what we’re doing out there, and that’s not even an issue anymore about figuring out what coverage we’re in or what’re we running and stuff like that. So I’d probably say detailed, 100 percent.”
Fernandez worked under Mike Brown to rebuild the Kings, as well as Mike Malone in Denver. He coached Canada to the medal stand at last summer’s FIBA World Cup, raising a lot of eyebrows. He interviewed for head coaching jobs with the Raptors, Suns and Bucks in the past year, but now has found his gig.