Why did Nets coach Jordy Fernandez dare to bench Zeng Fanbo at home in China?

This NBA China game is undoubtedly a painful memory for Zeng Fanbo. As a host player, he scored 1 steal and 3 fouls in 10 minutes of playing in the first game, and then sat on the bench in the second game. After the game, many Chinese fans Feeling dissatisfied, they all pointed the finger at Nets coach Jordy Fernandez. Everyone believed that in this kind of promotional game and playing at home in China, he completely ignored the feelings of the home fans and the overall NBA promotion, which was a bit too unreasonable.

Think back to the 2004 NBA China Game. The Houston Rockets, led by Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, faced off against the Sacramento Kings, led by stars such as Webber, Bibby, and Peja. Chinese player Liu Wei was invited to join the Kings for a trial training. His situation with Zeng Fanbo was relatively similar, but at that time, the national team The Kings gave Liu Wei enough face and allowed Liu Wei to enjoy star treatment during the press conference. During the players' appearance, all the Kings players deliberately let Liu Wei walk in the front and jokingly paused to let him enter the court first to enjoy the cheers of the home fans. Kings head coach Adelman also gave Liu Wei sufficient playing time in the two games, and Jordy finished Zeng Fanbo was not given any special treatment at all, which reminded me of a line in Fan Wei's sketch: "I'm just wondering, he's also a head coach in the NBA, how can the gap between people be so big?"

Some people have also risen to the top, saying that coach Jody is taking advantage of Nets owner Cai Chong. I will say a few words about this. Very few team owners in the NBA will directly intervene in coaching affairs (Sacramento Kings owner Ranadive shook his head disdainfully). Everyone believes in the concept of each performing his own duties and leaving professional matters to professionals. Team owners generally delegate team management and operation authority to the team general manager.

So the general manager is the person who has the most contact with the head coach, and the general manager will not interfere too much in the team hiring and game formation. They will usually propose a general direction, such as season goals and player training direction, but how the head coach implements it is his own business. For example, Monty, the head coach of the Detroit Pistons in the 2023-24 season, asked the owner and general manager to focus on training Cunningham and Jaden Ivey. As a result, Monty reused Killian Hayes. In the end, the team owner couldn't bear it and would rather fire him than pay him a sky-high US$60 million in compensation.

It can be seen from this that the team's head coach has more say in the locker room. If the team wants to achieve good results, the general manager and head coach need to work together, cooperate with each other, and support each other. But where there are people, there are Jianghu. There are many cases where general managers and head coaches don't like each other and compete for power. The most recent one is Denver Nuggets head coach Mike Malone and Booth. The two got into a heated argument over their power grab, and finally boss Kroenke fired both of them in anger.

The current general manager of the Nets is Sean Marks. His work ability and business ability are deeply trusted by Tsai Chongxin, because he successfully accelerated the team's reconstruction process soon after Tsai Chongxin purchased the team. Reconstruction in the NBA is the most challenging issue for a team manager. A good Team managers can shorten the rebuilding process, allow the team to rise rapidly, and lead the team to rebirth. In recent years, relatively well-known general managers like former Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri and the founder of the Warriors dynasty Bob Myers have all helped the team win championship honors through far-sighted and strategic operations.

Sean Marks and Tsai Chongxin

Marks is a former professional player in the NBA. After retiring, he began to follow his mentor Popovich as an assistant coach with the Spurs. He also learned management from the famous RC Buford, then the general manager of the Spurs. In the legendary honor book of the Spurs, the two names "Buford and Popovich" will be remembered forever. The two partnered to create the league's legendary "Ginobili, Duncan, Parker GDP" combination. They are also unique in discovering players and player transactions. George Hill's exchange for Leonard has become the most classic transaction case in the league.

RC-Buford, Popovich, Ginobili

Under the guidance of the two, the Spurs have cultivated a lot of coaches and management talents for the entire league. Because of the Spurs' excellent technical and tactical levels and super high professionalism, many employees will be poached by other teams with high salaries and take important positions after training in the Spurs for a few seasons. They are nicknamed "Spurs" by fans. "Taking only management personnel as an example, Thunder general manager Sam Presti, former Hawks general manager Danny Ferry, Pelicans general manager Dell Demps, Magic general manager Rob Hennigan, Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsay, and Marks all learned under Buford and Popovich, and their outstanding work ability once again confirmed the sentence: "What the Spurs produce must be high-quality."

Max may be only 0.1 centimeters away from Durant’s toe to become a god. He was invited from the Spurs to the Brooklyn Nets as general manager in 2016 to clean up the mess left by the Russian billionaire Prokhorov. But he had the foresight to select Atkinson as coach, and then quickly pulled the team out of the quagmire through vigorous trade and draft operations. In the summer of 2019, he won a great victory in the player market, signing Irving, DeAndre Jordan, Durant and other stars in one go, and finally successfully helped Helped Prokhorov to sell the team at a high price. With the addition of Harden, the team's brand and influence increased rapidly, and the team's market value also increased steadily. However, unfortunately, the Big Three lineup failed to win the championship due to various problems. The Nets are currently in a new reconstruction cycle..

In the new reconstruction cycle, Max is very serious about the selection of the team's head coach. This time he chose Jordi Fernandez. Jordi is 43 years old and a Spaniard. He has been a youth training coach in a Spanish professional club since he was 15 years old, so he has nearly 30 years of experience in training young players. In 2006, he came to the United States, the holy land of basketball, from Europe to study.

There are also factions in the NBA coaching circle. Strictly speaking, Jordy belongs to the Mike Brown and Mike Malone lineage under Popovich's branch. He is Popovich's disciple and grandson. In 2009, he joined the Cleveland Cavaliers and served as an assistant coach for the Cavaliers' affiliated Development League team. During this period, he met Cavaliers head coach Mike Brown. Brown was deeply appreciated for his serious work attitude and excellent coaching ability. Brown was interested in promoting him to his assistant coaching staff. However, only one year later, Brown was fired by the team for failing to help James win the championship.

Jordy, who lost this promotion opportunity, relied on his excellent ability and after three years of hard work, he finally became the head coach of the Cavaliers' affiliated Development League team in 2013 and contributed to the Cavaliers' home team. At that time, Dellavedova, Joe Harris, Seth Curry and other players who had worked with him all spoke highly of him.

In 2016, he was invited by another Popovich disciple, Mike Malone, to join the coaching staff of the Denver Nuggets. Joining him on the team is Jokic, the current number one player in the league. As fellow Europeans, the two are very good at basketball concepts. Jodi's assistant coach's advice, which emphasizes teamwork and discipline, made Jokic like a fish in water. It can be said that the two complemented each other. With Jokic's rise, Jodi quickly became Mike Malone's most trusted right-hand man, and also established a huge reputation for himself.

His relationship with Mike Brown is still close. In 2020, Brown served as the head coach of the Nigerian national team and led the team to participate in the Olympics. He asked Jodi to join his coaching staff for a summer job. In 2022, Mike Brown regained the opportunity to coach the Kings. He immediately invited Jodi to assist him with a high salary.

A coach who wants to see beyond his reach and reach a higher level, and who doesn’t want to be a head coach is not a good coach. After 18 years of hard work in 2024, Jodi was finally spotted by his senior brother Max and got the opportunity to serve as a head coach. Judging from his first coaching season in 2024-25 , did not have many outstanding performances, and the team's reconstruction process has not made much progress. This year's team is a large-scale purchasing trip. They used the first-round picks to select players such as Yegor Jemin, Traore, Ben Saraf, and Danny Wolf. This group of players is an important issue that tests Jody's coaching level.

As a businessman, Tsai Chongxin definitely hopes that Chinese basketball players can reach the level of NBA players, and he will spare no effort to select Chinese players. This can be seen from Cui Yongxi and Zeng Fanbo last year and a large number of American media this summer. It can be seen from the news predicting that Yang Hansen will join the Nets. Chinese players joining the Nets will be of great help to the development of the team, but they need to be tough. If they are not strong enough and rely on connections to join the team, they will suffer. I sincerely hope that in the future more Chinese players can win recognition with their strength and rebuild the glory of Chinese basketball.