As the Nets came into Monday’s preseason home opener, their veterans have claimed, to a man, this is the toughest training camp they’ve been through.
New coach Jordi Fernandez doesn’t mind taking the blame for that.
But he admitted it’s basically the players clawing tooth and nail, fighting for jobs and roles that fostered that environment, not him.
“You may think coaches decide that, but the reality is that players play, players practice. The ones that are making it competitive, hard, physical and challenging are the players,” Fernandez said before Monday’s 131-92 preseason win over the Wizards. “Obviously, my demands are to work extremely hard, to be a good teammate, to build relationships, to compete, to get 1 percent better, so on and so forth. Everyone establishes a culture, our offensive principles, defensive principles.
“But the guys are buying into it, and they’re fighting for their opportunities, their spots, their roles. And that’s a good thing to see. We saw it in Game 1. Everything that we’re doing day-to-day, then it translates on the court: That togetherness, that competitiveness, being selfless. And at the end of the day, I like that they blamed me for camp being so hard, but I’m going to blame them for working hard and being engaged and committed to the process.”
The Nets hosted a Washington team also in the early stages of a rebuild.
And after some pretty competitive practices and scrimmages, they were itching to face somebody in a different jersey.
“We’ve had a lot of great, healthy competition, so we’re definitely looking forward to putting on the same jersey and beating up on somebody else,” said Ziaire Williams.
“It’s definitely been a grind, but we’ve definitely been getting after it, and I think it’s going to pay off, especially the way coach wants to play…I’ve never had a training camp like this, going as hard as we’re going. It’s been a challenge, but it’s been fun,” Shake Milton said. “We’ve been working really hard. The whole month of September was just a grind for us, and everybody’s excited to beat up on somebody else.”
Raising their competitiveness level is something that both former coach Jacque Vaughn and Kevin Ollie, the interim coach who followed him, failed to do last season.
It’s something Fernandez has harped upon.
To that end, he’s put the Nets through their paces with a ton of conditioning.
“Not that it’s different, just a lot more [conditioning]. Nowadays, you go up and down two or three times, and they say your load is too high, right? It’s not too much of that over here,” Williams said. “So we’ve been getting after it, competing at a high level. It’s been good, though, man.
“We’ve definitely been doing a lot more than I have in my career, for sure. It’s a new staff, a lot of new guys. We’re just going to see what everyone is capable of doing. Like Jordi said, nothing’s going to be handed out. Nothing’s going to be given. He doesn’t care who you are, what you’ve done: he wants you to leave it on the floor while he’s here right now. So that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Fernandez hasn’t just put his Nets through tons of conditioning. He’s also demanded high intensity in their scrimmages.
“I’d say the intensity of it,” Milton said. “Typically, you get into September, and guys are playing pickup, they go to [Los Angeles] or Miami, or these runs or whatever, and it’s just buddy-buddy. You’re working on your game, but it’s not really that intensive, what an NBA game has been like. Most of the guys have shown up in September, and we really wanted to dedicate ourselves to put in that work. So it’s been game speed this whole time. It’s been high intensity, and you can tell from everybody, just the growth they’ve had on the defensive end. So it’s been good.”