Spanish Coach Jordi Fernández Makes History by Becoming First National Coach to Lead an NBA Team

Spanish basketball breaks another unthinkable ceiling. Jordi Fernández has become the first national coach to lead an NBA team, the Brooklyn Nets, as the franchise officially announced this Monday. The Catalan coach, 41 years old and currently also Canada’s coach, thus reaches the highest step on a bench in the best League in the world, after already breaking down another barrier this year as the Spaniard who has held a higher position in the history of the American competition: first assistant at Sacramento Kings.

Step by step to the top, Jordi Fernández has written his career in the United States in good writing. “I don’t consider myself American, but adapted,” explains the coach born in Badalona about a fundamental ingredient of his success: training within the American structure, soaking up his philosophy, adapting, becoming one of them. Thus, going through practically every possible job within an extensive coaching staff, he has earned the recognition of the NBA, the teams and their stars, and as a reward the opportunity to be the head coach in the world’s basketball elite.

“I played basketball until I couldn’t take it anymore and at the age of 15 I was already training,” Fernández recalled in EL PAÍS about the beginning of a slow but very sure career, with short but firm steps. The young man directed in the training categories in Badalona, ​​Hospitalet and Lleida, graduated in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences, studied in Amsterdam and began a doctorate in Sports Psychology. By then he was already part of the Hospitalet coaching staff as physical trainer of the first team in LEB Plata and first coach of a youth team. Until a trip to the United States changed his life after attending a summer campus to complete his apprenticeship. “I went to America with one hand in front and one behind and ended up in a company that was dedicated to training professional players on vacation,” he rewinds. It was 2006 and Jordi was 23 years old. The boy showed talent, they took his name and then he began to climb the ladder. Three years later, at 26, he has already entered an NBA locker room, with a position in the player development department at the Cleveland Cavaliers. Him face to face with LeBron James.

And one step after another: leading the Development League team affiliated with the Cavaliers, the first Spanish coach to participate in an All Star, landing at the Denver Nuggets, where he rose to the position of second assistant and helped forge Nikola Jokic. He completed his resume with international merits: assistant to Sergio Scariolo, one of his mentors, in the 2017 Eurobasket, assistant to Nigeria in the Tokyo Games and now coach of Canada, bronze in the last World Cup and enlisted in the Paris Games .

JORDI FERNÁNDEZ! 🙌

🇪🇸 First coach born in Spain to direct an NBA game as head coach. And with a victory against the Raptors.pic.twitter.com/euqEbL2hPa

— Gigantes del Basket (@GIGANTESbasket) December 15, 2022

The jump is wild. In 2018, Serbian Igor Kokoskov signed for the Phoenix Suns as the first European coach in NBA history, but he barely lasted one season (19 wins and 63 losses). His compatriot Darko Rajakovic joined the Raptors last summer. The Italian Ettore Messina was an assistant to Mike Brown in the Lakers and Gregg Popovich in San Antonio, and Scariolo was also an assistant in Toronto (in his first season he won the ring). “I am one of them here, that is my strong point,” says Jordi Fernández about what differentiates him from those predecessors: “On the professional side, I have been raised and trained in the United States. I have done every job you can imagine on a coaching staff. And the years give you respect. It’s learning about your job and the culture of the country, not just the language. It is a very competitive process. Every time you go up more there is less chance of continuing to go up. From my position there are only 30 jobs in the world. “There is a lot of pressure.” Already in December 2022 he briefly became head coach when the main coach, Mike Brown, was sent off with the Kings against Toronto and the Badalona native occupied the chair for nine minutes. He was prepared. His opportunity has arrived.

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2024-04-23 00:33:27
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