NEW YORK — Brooklyn Nets guard Dariq Whitehead has had a rough first two seasons in the NBA as he has mostly dealt with injuries and inconsistent playing time for various reasons. As Whitehead heads into his third season in Brooklyn, he will be looking to secure a spot in the rotation and head coach Jordi Fernandez has noticed the work that Whitehead has put in.

“I can tell you he’s gotten better. You look at his body from the summer, how hard he’s worked, he’s already gotten better and keeps taking advantage of his opportunities,” Fernandez said after Wednesday’s training camp practice. As it stands, Whitehead will most likely make the roster coming out of training camp, but given how many quality wings are on the team, he could find himself having to make good on that hard work sooner than later.

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“I think that’s a big part of it. This training camp and preseason games are going to be important and we want all of our players, not just Dariq, to try to take advantage of that,” Fernandez continued. While Whitehead can be considered a shooting guard, he can also spend some time at the small forward spot, giving him more positional versatility which could help him compete for a roster spot.

Whitehead, 21, is one of three shooting guards listed on the team along with projected starter Cam Thomas and veteran Terance Mann, who the Nets acquired from the Atlanta Hawks earlier in the summer. What could complicate matters for Whitehead is that guard Kobe Bufkin, whom Brooklyn also acquired from Atlanta in a separate trade this offseason, could spend some time at shooting guard as well. Whitehead knows how important this preseason is.

“For me, I feel like this was honestly my most important summer,” Whitehead said during Media Day last week. “Not being able to do what I had needed to do the past three summers, being able to work out, work on my body. Just the difference I felt from the last game of last season to now and just being able to trust my body, how comfortable I am with just handling things that I had done before is just night and day.”

Whitehead is coming off a 2024-25 season in which he averaged 5.7 points and 1.5 rebounds per game while shooting 40.6% from the field and 44.6% from three-point land in 20 games played. If Whitehead is going to be on the roster long enough to get back to the guy that was once considered one of the best players in his high school class, he will have to show what he can do in training camp and preseason before it’s too late.

This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Nets’ Dariq Whitehead putting the work in to earn a rotation spot