In an extensive interview with Mundo Deportivo, Canada head coach Jordi Fernandez talked about the FIBA World Cup.
Fernandez led his team to historic success and bronze at the Mundobasket. In the fight for third place, Canada outplayed the USA after overtime.
“I told the players that we still have five minutes. This group is very resilient, they have overcome everything. They competed well from the start. It wasn’t our best five minutes of the tournament, but it was very good. The way we win says a lot about the group, the talent, the unity between them and their ability to work. They are the ones who progress“, the Spanish expert began the conversation with Mundo Deportivo.
One of the most responsible for Canada’s success was Dillon Brooks. The Memphis basketball player scored 39 points for the USA, and in the end he was named the best defender in the tournament.
“He’s excellent. He is nothing more than a normal person who comes in and is very professional. He takes good care of himself and does all the work to be 100% ready to play. His work in the gym, the things he does on his own – he is a superb professional.
Inside the locker room, he connects with his teammates, everyone respects him. He is like the rest of the group, he is nothing out of this world. He is one of the best competitors I have ever seen, and on the entire court, not only defensively, where he has superpowers, but he’s shown offensively that he can not only score but also be efficient with the quality of the shots.“
About the position of the first coach in the NBA league
In the previous period, Fernandez was one of the candidates for the position of the first coach of the Phoenix Suns and Toronto Raptors. He was especially close to a place in the professional staff of the Canadian franchise, whose chief position was later taken by the Serbian strategist Darko Rajakovic.
“I don’t think it’s a question of inexperience in the process of selection and relations with officials. When it comes, it will come, because that person wanted to give the job to me. What I need to do is to gain experience as a coach, to grow, to bring that experience when I come back to Sacramento. I’m excited to learn, to do new things and have different challenges in my life, that is important. Other than that, I’m not even obsessed with it.
I’d really like to be an NBA head coach, and I trust that it will happen, but I wouldn’t change this World Cup experience and the opportunity to coach at the Olympics for anything in the world. That’s what really excites me because that’s what will happen. The rest, it doesn’t make much sense to think about things that you don’t know if they will happen“, Jordi Fernandez concluded.