NBA players aren’t sure how they feel about Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernández.
Wednesday morning, The Athletic dropped a report detailing the results of its anonymous latest player poll. Before anything else, it asked who’s the most underrated player in the league. Jalen Johnson and Derrick White were the top vote-getters, but Michael Porter Jr. pulled in some.
Although there were 31 other players formally named ahead of him, MPJ was listed in the “received votes” blurb, which The Athletic equated
to 0.07% of the 151 votes cast. This past year, he hit career-highs across the board, averaging 24.2/7.1/3.0 on 59.5% true shooting.
The other results involving Nets are a bit of a head-scratcher. Fernández received 1.4% of the 146 votes for the “most impressive” coach. However, he also received 3.0% of the 100 votes for “least impressive.” Fernández was one of 10 coaches named as top vote-getters for both “most impressive” and “least impressive.” The others were Joe Mazzula, JJ Redick, Will Hardy, Rick Carlisle, Steve Kerr, Tyronn Lue, Kenny Atkinson, Mike Brown, Ime Udoka.
After an entire season worrying about percentages (that’ll hopefully bend our way Sunday), I can understand why fans might fret over Fernández polling higher for the negative testament. However, if there’s any conclusion to draw from this data, it has to be that NBA players are just indifferent on what a good coach is. It’s one thing to have one or two names show up as top vote-getters in both polls, but 10 is self-defeating.
That said, last year, Fernández was a top vote-getter when The Athletic asked players who’s the “worst coach” in the league. He earned 2.7% of the 73 votes.
Perhaps he just needs to coach a non-tanking team. I guess it’s a good thing the Nets don’t own their first round pick next year. From here on out, it’s all about trying to win.
