With the Nets rebuilding, they’ve taken fliers on several youngsters like Ziaire Williams and Killian Hayes looking for fresh starts.
Jordi Fernandez is hoping they make good on those second chances.
“A fresh start is good, but at the end of the day you need consistency, because you cannot keep having fresh starts,” Fernandez said. “You cannot say, ‘Oh, I’m done here, I’ll go somewhere else.’ Sometimes when you get hit in the mouth it’s good to recover and then start and look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘What did I do wrong that I can fix myself?’
“The context or the other people, that you cannot control. But you can control what you can do. And a fresh start, I’m good with it, but I’m gonna judge everybody from what I see everyday. And it’s not just one day, it’s not two days, you gotta keep stacking days together.”
That’s what Williams has done, looking good in open run before Tuesday’s start of camp.
The 2021 No. 10 pick averaged 8.1 points as a rookie but needed development and got lost in the shuffle of a contender before the Nets traded for him.
Williams, 23, said he feels like “a loose bird finally let out of his cage,” adding, “Some days I just kind of felt like I was trapped. I definitely feel a lot more free [here]. … It’s definitely a blessing in disguise.”
Now the forward is in a place that can afford to let him grow.
“What happened in Memphis, I don’t know and, the reality is, I don’t care,” Fernandez said. “This is my start with him, my relationship with him, so all I can do is build that relationship with him, talking to him day-to-day the same way I do with everybody else, challenging him.”
Hayes, the No. 7 pick in 2020, has even more to prove.
Though he averaged 8.1 points and 5.2 assists in 210 games for Detroit, he got let go.
The Nets worked him out and inked him to an Exhibit 10, essentially a camp invite.
“I feel like it’s a good start for me because it’s a rebuild and I’m trying to rebuild myself as well. It’s a great thing for me,” Hayes, 23, said. “We have a chip on our shoulder, because we aren’t coming in as a favorite, so we have to put in that much more work to get to where we want to go.”
Hayes is ineligible for a two-way deal due to service time, so he must land a standard contract or nothing. A long-armed defender — Top 10 in steals in 2023 — he’s working on his shot and conditioning to make good on this second chance.
“[I’m] attacking the days. Every day you have to be focused and ready for anything,” Hayes said. “This is a big-time opportunity for myself, so I can’t be caught slipping.”
