Jordi Fernandez has seen Knicks' Mike Brown evolve as an NBA coach
Mike Brown, left, and assistant coach Jordi Fernandez, then with the Sacramento Kings, on Feb. 26, 2024. Credit: Getty Images/Ezra Shaw
LAS VEGAS
Jordi Fernandez has seen Mike Brown in all kinds of situations and circumstances, and maybe most of all, in all kinds of pressure-filled settings. He was with him in Cleveland when Brown was trying to balance wins and losses while LeBron James was moving closer and closer to exiting the team. He watched Brown replace Phil Jackson in Los Angeles and later become the head coach in Sacramento for a Kings franchise mired in decades of failure.
And now, as Brown takes over the Knicks with the pressure of having to live up to the success Tom Thibodeau put in place, there is one thing that Fernandez knows for certain about his longtime friend and mentor . . . he won’t cower.
“The one thing you can tell about Mike Brown is that he’s not scared,” said Fernandez, who is preparing to enter his second year as head coach of the Nets. “I give him a lot of respect for that. He always is up for the challenge. He was at that time, 2009, 2010, [then] he was with Sacramento and it was the longest playoff drought in history, and he is right now joining the Knicks. You guys have somebody that will not be afraid and he’ll be ready to do what he needs to do.
“And I think you learn from all those situations. That’s why he’s the coach he is right now.”
“Nobody has any bigger expectations, first of all, than I do,” Brown said at his introductory news conference on Tuesday. “My expectations are high. This is the Knicks. We talked about Madison Square Garden being iconic. We talked about our fans. I love and embrace the expectations that come along with it. So I’m looking forward to it.”
Fernandez knows Brown as well as anyone. He was working here in Las Vegas, not with the NBA teams crowding Thomas and Mack Center for the Las Vegas Summer League but serving as a player development intern at nearby Impact Basketball. And just as teams were scouting the summer league for unheralded talent, it was there that Mike Brown found one off the beaten path.
At the facility, which often was used to prepare players for the NBA Draft, Fernandez was tasked with working with Mike Brown’s son, Elijah. From the side, mostly without a word spoken, Brown would watch how Fernandez worked. And when the summer was over, he had an invitation for him.
“I met Mike through working with his son Elijah,” Fernandez said. “And long story short, he offered me to go to Cleveland to work with Elijah and ended up hiring me in Cleveland. That’s how I started my journey in the NBA. Always thankful to him . . . He helped me a lot, gave me the opportunity, but most important thing, he treated me like family. I still consider him like my family.
“Sometimes he’d watch me through film. That’s very Mike-like. And always attention to detail. Great way about him. You know, incredible worker. I learned a lot of the things about those details and teaching and so forth.”
While they now will compete in a rivalry — at least what you can call a rivalry, with the Knicks and Nets on different ends of the spectrum — they maintain a friendship, on equal footing as colleagues in the coaching brotherhood. Maybe that’s something even Brown didn’t imagine when he plucked Fernandez from Las Vegas and put him on his staff.
But it’s not just Fernandez who has ascended and developed. Working alongside Brown and against him, Fernandez has seen Brown grow through each stop, learn from every challenge. In his introduction, Brown spoke about evolving through his career. Fernandez has seen it.
“You see the Mike at the beginning,” Fernandez said. “When I met him, he was 39, just turning 40. I always remember the day that we celebrated his 40th birthday at the facility with everybody there, in the 2009-10 season. And then you see the evolution, going through Golden State, going to the Lakers, coming back and going to Golden State. You see obviously the same person, good person, talented person, but with different experience. And we all become part of our experiences as coaches.
“And that’s been the coolest thing. I see the same Mike as a person, but different. I’ve enjoyed seeing that from him. The thing is we all have to learn from experiences, keep the good and correct some of the things when the experience is not that good. I give him a lot of credit. He didn’t stick in his own ways. He always got better and now he gets to coach a very special organization.”
But what Fernandez knows, too, is that while some in the organization may skip over Thibodeau’s accomplishments and whisper instead about his gruff manner, Brown is a demanding coach.
“In a good way, yes,” Fernandez said. “He works really hard. He wants everybody else to work hard. He always has a very good way with people. People love Mike Brown. And he will hold everybody accountable, not just the players but everybody that works around him and himself. When he feels like he made a mistake, he’ll share with everybody else. So I’ve learned a lot from him.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
