NEW YORK — Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez heads into his second season in the NBA still guiding a Nets team that is trying to find its way back to playoff contention. Brooklyn seems to have found their head coach to usher in the next step of the franchise in Fernandez, but he will have a unique challenge to work through over the course of training camp.

“I think the right balance between opportunity and holding them accountable, it has to come from us. But at the same time, we have three point guards, and the three point guards are rookies, so they’re going to get thrown into the fire,” Fernandez said following training camp practice on Friday. The point guard competition as of this writing will be between Egor Demin, Nolan Traore, and Ben Saraf, all from the 2025 Draft.

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“We’re going to trust them. We’re going to make them get better and earn those minutes,” Fernandez continued. “When they’re there, like I’ve always said, if those mistakes are honest mistakes, we’re trying to do the right things, we’ll live with it, and we’ll move on to the next game. That’s how you get better. That’s how we developed some of our guys last year, and we’ll continue to do that.”

As Fernandez alluded to, part of his process last season was using his background in player development to address some of the specific areas of improvement of the younger players. Along the way, players like Keon Johnson, Noah Clowney, and Tyrese Martin, just to name a few, had career-best seasons thanks to Fernandez’s approach to development and coaching.

With the Nets still in the early stages of its rebuild, Fernandez and the coaching staff are hoping that at least one of Demin, Traore, Saraf, and possibly guard Kobe Bufkin can emerge as one of the main contributors on the roster. Before Brooklyn can get to the point of worrying about who will be the guards of the future, Fernandez has to see who wins the point guard competition coming out of camp.

This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Nets’ Jordi Fernandez details underlying aspect of PG competition