June 20, 2023 • 52 mins
Chris is joined by the Brooklyn Nets’ new assistant coach Jay Hernandez to discuss his New York roots, his unique basketball journey, connecting with his Puerto Rican roots, and the valuable experience he brings to the coaching staff.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Uh, hey, what's going on. It's Chris Carino. This is
the Voice of the Nets podcast. Today we're going to
introduce you to another interesting person on the Nets basketball staff.
One of their new hires but not new to the area.
(00:24):
Jay Hernandez, a New York native, is now full circle
back in the area as an assistant coach, but also
full circle in his journey to the NBA that has
a connection to Jacques Vaughn, and you'll hear about that
here on this episode of the Voice of the Nets.
Jay Hernandez played at HOSTRA was once recruited by Tim Capstraw,
(00:48):
my radio partner, and you'll hear some Capper mentions in here.
I think there's about three Capper mentions in here, so
you want to stay tuned for that. But Jay Hernandez
a developmental coach. That was sort of the reputation that
he has coming to the Nets, and that's something that
didn't exist all that long ago. NBA teams have staffs
(01:13):
now of developmental coaches trying to take their young players
and make them better. It's a big part of NBA
basketball operations staffs. So we'll talk about his role, his background,
and his basketball journey it's Jay Hernandez right here on
the Voice of the Nets. So, Jay, I had admit
(01:38):
the first time that I heard about you, you had
just started working with the Orlando Magic and my longtime
radio partner, Tim Capstraw, the Kapper, he knows you from
working out on Long Island. He recruited you when you
were in high school and he pointed you out when
we were in Orlando and he said that guy is
(01:59):
a great coach and he should be on the NETS radar.
He's a New York guy. He should be on the
NETS radar. I just wanted to get that out off
the bat.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
He is the best.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I was just telling the story that when he recruited me,
I had no intentions of going to Wagner. I wanted
to get out of the area, but he nearly convinced
me to go there, just because of his personality, the
type of person he was, the coach he was, and
you know, basically wrote me a twelve page letter. And
(02:31):
he's the one coach that I remember having to reach
out to and feel really bad saying I'm not going
to that school. And we've kept a really close relationship
all these years.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
You just didn't want to you just didn't want to
get up at five thirty am to go to some
gym off campus, right, because they were doing construction. It
was I told Tim, he tell me that story about
how he had to practice because they were doing construction
on the gym and the you know, big tenure of
his coaching staff, and I'm like, how did you get
anybody to come there?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Right? It was all him.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I'm sold on that, you know, just all personality. He
got the most out of his team's tremendous coach. So
uh yeah, I would.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I would. I would have gotten up five thirty for him.
But at the end of the day, I had to
go a different direction.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Uh. Now he was he was recruiting you. You were
at Saint Dominic's in Oyster Bay, Long Island, right, And yes,
I will say though you are not, no all respect
to you, You're not the most famous basketball coach to
come out of Saint Dominic's now in Long Island.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Correct, That is correct.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
They have a plethora of coaches that have come out
of that small school. One of the reasons I picked
it was because it was considered more of.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
A basketball school.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
And yeah, Rick Patino obviously now at Saint John's and
Ralph Willard, Jimmy Christian coach at Boston College, my high
school teammate James Moran.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Jimmy Moran is in the.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
End being right now as well. So there's a there's
a lot of us out there right now. So it's
a predominant part.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I'll represent it. And and it's Brick Patino stealing your
thunder as a coach coming back to the New York
area this year.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
That's right. I'm hoping.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
I'm hoping that he can he can make it live
again in Queens. And that was always something that we
loved at Hofstra, playing against Saint John's every year and
having that little mini New York rivalry along with you know,
teams like I own and Manhattan College. I mean, there's
just a lot of good basketball here. So it's it's
nice to see uh, great coaches sticking around and being
a part of it.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Don't forget Ford them. I have to throw that in there,
because I'm a Ford them alone.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah okay, yeah they were at that time we beat them,
but yeah, we'll put them in the mix as well.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I'll tell you this, the first time I met Lou
Carnaseca was I was. I was a Fordham student doing
a game at Hofstra and Louis was just there in
the gym watching the game, and he and he and he,
we had him on at halftime and I actually got
to interview Luke Carna Sac as a college kid. That's
Ostra Gym's icon. Trying to think that you were you were?
(05:06):
You were not at Hostra at that point when I
was there, I was, You're a little younger than me.
But you didn't go directly from Saint Dominic's to Hostra.
You you made a stop over in New Hampshire first,
So why did you go to New Hampshire and then
what eventually brought you back home to Hostra. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
So I had a good mix of mid majors coming
UH to me late in my recruitment. You know, Davidson
ended up coming out San Diego. We played in a
tournament there above the Room Classic in La Joya, and
then there were a bunch of you know, kind of
mid majors in the area that that started offering and
(05:46):
for me, I wanted to go somewhere where I knew
I could play right away. At the time, they had
a really good UH Hospitality management school and I was
thinking about that that had built a new arena, and
so I was thinking, Okay, this could be a good scenario.
Plus played all the Eastern c Board schools and so
my family, you know, could all be at the games,
and that was that was a big, big part of
(06:08):
it as well. And when I got there, I realized
quickly it was a hockey school.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
It was crickets for basketball.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
And we ended up winning seven games that year, three
at the Buzzer, so I could have easily been four.
But it was definitely a really good experience. Hofstra at
the time wanted to red shirt me because of Speedy
was coming in the same year, and so I grew
up playing against Speedy.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I knew how good he was, and I was saying.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Well, I can go to these other schools and play
right away, compete against these guys. And I was okay
with that at the time. But you know, once I
saw what they were doing and who they were bringing
in and how they were operating under coach, and the
time was you know, Joe Jones, Brett Gunning who was
also in the NBA, Tom Pacor who's now Quinnipiac, just
(06:56):
a great staff. I was like, that's probably where my
fit is at this point in terms of my style
of play and things of that nature.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
So when I.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Made that call, I ended up red shirting anyway and
ended up going and getting my dual NBA.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
And we had a pretty good run there with with
coach right.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, coach would be Jay Wright, of course, the famous
coach you would go on to coach at Villanova. And
then you know you mentioned Tom Pikora who who was
an assistant there and then took over for Jay right
at Hostra, then later went to Fordham and now up
at Cunetpiac where he just took over. Uh I think
was Dunleavy just left there. But you also mentioned Speedy.
That's Speedy Claxton, great Christ the King player, right, and
(07:36):
anyone on the Hostra. Unfortunately, the the you bring up
a sour note there for net fans, the true net fans,
because as you know, I know, Speedy Claxton was a
great New York City product and played in Hostra. It's
a sore subject because he got a ring with the
(08:00):
Spurs and three at the Nets expense, and you know,
people think of and I was there court side for
that one my second year in the League and Game
six in San Antonio, Nets are as close as they've
ever been to an NBA title. There, they're in a
Game six, they're down three to two, they have a
sixteen point lead in the third quarter of that game,
(08:23):
and the Spurs going a nineteen nothing run bridging the
third and fourth quarter to win the championship. And it
wasn't man who Genobili going off. It wasn't Tim Duncan
going off. It wasn't Tony Parker, who was a rookie
going off. It was Speedy Claxton who came in with
that second unit and just lit up the Nett for
(08:45):
an eighteen nothing run. And I'm still I think I'm
still cleaning confetti out of my bag that I had
that night.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, now, it was I try to tell that story.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
You know, it's twenty years ago now, you know, obviously
when it happened, just tweeted about it, and yeah, I
wasn't even thinking about it now, but it was the Nets.
But I remember being super proud of him and happy
for him that he was able to represent kind of
the smaller guards, you know, the mid major guys, And yeah,
(09:17):
he really did a great job in that series and
that set him up for the remainder of his career.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So he played together.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, we played together for two years. We were in
the backcourt together for two years.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
And then when he graduated, we had seven seniors coming back.
So I think the story goes. Jay Wright had an
opportunity to accept the Rutgers job after speed he graduated,
but he held on and said I think we can
we can repeat and won another championship. I think he
was always eyeing Villanova and we had seven seniors coming back.
(09:50):
Norman Richardson, Brooklyn Product as well, made the NBA was
a part of that that roster, and we were just
very seasoned group, and you know, we competed at a
really high level.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
So you know, we had a really good year that year.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Ended up losing in the NCAA Tournament to UCLA that year,
but you know, we had some some pretty good moments
that season.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
What do you recall about playing for Jay Wright? What
stood out to you?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
What stet out to me mostly was his attention to detail,
you know, and then his ability to get everybody to
buy into the bigger, bigger costs, and so by I
would say mid to late season, you could see us
firing on all cylinders, and there was no question marks
about you know what your role was, and whatever that
(10:36):
role was, you didn't feel like you were in a
diminished role. You felt like you were part of something
big and that you were chasing greatness and we were
all in it together. So I think that's where his
ability lies, is his ability to connect with everybody and
be able to get the most out of his players.
So a guy like me who could never dunk and
(10:57):
never dunked in a game, could compete at a very
high level against some of the major division ones because
it gave me that confidence that you know, you can
do this and you're going to lead us tonight and
do it your way. And that was always his thing,
especially after Speedy graduated, and the nicest way possible just said,
you're not Speedy Clackson. You know, you're Jay Hernandez and
(11:18):
we expect you to be that for this team.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Well, you couldn't dunk, but you could defend, right, I
mean you were you all defense. You were the defensive
player of the year in your conference. Correct.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah, for the point guard from the point guard position,
which is you know, a difficult thing to do. I
tried to again, that was the confidence I had from
my teammates have in my back and the style of
play that that coach right instilled. You know, I was
able to pick up full court all game. You know,
it's a tremendous condition at that point in time. And yeah,
I learned a lot from just them in terms of technique,
(11:51):
you know, having the conditioning and then the hard aspect
of it and the want to do that definitely came
from my father, who played thirteen years in Puerto Rico,
was on the national team there and he was a
two time defensive player of the Year in that league
from that position as well. So you know, I always
took pride in being able to play both sides of
the ball.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
This is your father, Richard who So where did he
play college?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
So he went to Dollan College in Long Island, and
you know, he went to a Delphi Academy in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
He grew up in Canarsie.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
So this is definitely kind of a full circle moment
for for that side of the family, just having me
back in Brooklyn, and you know, there's a lot of excitement.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
There and now I know you're you know, your your
father's of Puerto rican descent, and he was he played
professionally in Puerto Rico, and you spent some time. You
were very young, but you had some experience living in
Puerto Rico and SENI your dad play. What do you
remember about that.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I just remember how how competitive it was at that time,
how exciting the end fronment was. I remember running around
with our mascot in baiom On and uh, you know,
shooting shots and the crowd going crazy, you know, so
like bringing my little gym bag to go with him.
So it was playing biddy basketball in the outdoor courts there.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
It was.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
It was a lot of fun. I remember when we
came back here back to Long Island. I was about
seven years old, so it was probably around two and
a half to close to seven, and getting to just
see him do his thing, and you know, it was
it was awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
I always wanted to go back there and play and
kind of represent my dad and you know, be a
part of that experience as a player myself.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
It was a really cool experience.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, which you did right after after Hofstra. Well you
had some time, but you you end up going and
playing professionally in Puerto rican So what was I know
you that that league is competitive, right, I mean, that's
a that's a pretty good league. It's produced a couple
of pros in the NBA. What was your experience like
there playing in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, it was great from a standpoint of guard play.
It was always really competitive. Even one of the times
when I was there, Carlos so Roya was playing, you know,
and they had a number of guys who were veteran
guys that actually played with my dad, that were on
the tail end of their career, who were you know,
Hall of famers there that were part of that experience.
(14:24):
I try to tell people the the toughness factor. You
have to be tough to be able to play there.
You have to be super skilled. You know, there's a
bunch of guys from the States, and then you know
you have guys like myself who you know, maybe grew
up in the States, but you know, come from you know,
Puerto Rican background. I can go there and play, so
(14:46):
you end up having like four guys that are you know,
kind of from the States that are playing there with
the guys that are that are from pr So for me,
it was really cool to kind of bridge that gap
for the guys that came, you know, from the States
and be able to community kate with uh with the
players that were there as well. And you know, I
was fortunate enough to captain two of the teams that
I was there for, so that was a big honor.
(15:08):
And yeah, the coaching as well. You know, I tell
people that just the level of coaches are phenomenal there
from from that area. And my father was coached by
some some great coaches, you know, including Flora Melendez who
was there, and then you know he was PJ. Carlissimo
coached him, Gene Bartow, you know, Phil Jackson got to
start in that league. So there's a lot of history
(15:30):
and tradition.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So you mentioned the coaches and the influence you had
there in Puerto Rico. You don't go directly from playing
professionally in Puerto Rico to coaching, you you kind of
you did go back to Hobstra, but it was not
the coach, correct, You went back into and worked in
the administration.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yeah, I was director of Strategic Planning and Admissions. So
they offered me a job. They like the way I
represented the university and they said we'd like to have
you here. I was going for Actually, I finished up
a dual MBA in marketing and management, and so while
I was doing that, they said, you know, we'd love
to have you be a part of this still, and
(16:14):
I accept a position. I was going and doing all
kinds of projects for the president of university and traveling,
going to college fairs and doing all of that kind
of stuff. And so I did that for about eight
or nine months, and I ended up getting to pharmaceutical
sales right after that.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So I did that for two years.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
But all during that time I was doing basketball training
and a lot of people didn't really know what that
was at the time. You know, it was a pretty
new industry. Now everybody talks about player development and things
like that. But back in nineteen ninety eight, I started
helping my dad, who was the first I guess trainer
aut of Island Garden in West Hempstead, doing stuff on
(16:54):
these side baskets, and so I just fell in love
with helping kids get better. So the kids I had,
they had money, and their parents understood what lessons were,
you know, from a standpoint of either tennis lessons or
a pitching coach. So they're like, oh, this makes sense.
You can help my son or daughter dribble better, shoot better,
that kind of thing. Eventually it got to the point
(17:16):
where those players were getting better and people were seeing
the work. Let's say, well I want to try it.
Early on typical New York it was like, why would
I pay you? I'm already nice, Like I'm not, I'm
not pay you to play to work out on my
basketball game. So but within a short amount of time,
I would say in about five within five years, people
started seeing players and be like, oh, that's a great move.
(17:36):
Who did they train with? And it started to become
more of a thing. So yeah, after two years, I
asked my wife, I said, do you mind if I
give up this gas card and car and benefits and
all that stuff to try to make this a real business.
And I ended up going to Puerto Rico one more
time and then I came back, had some clinics and
(17:56):
camp set up and gave ourselves about six months and
started a company called pro Hoops in two thousand and four,
and you know, I took off. So I was I
was very fortunate that my wife was okay with me
trying to venture into a new area and gave me
that confidence.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Did you have somebody or some player that would be
like the tipping point for you with that as a
player development, you know, business and school, somebody that kind
of all of a sudden, people went, wow, that guy
went and then you know kind of the damn breaks.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah. I mean my first pro was Wally's Erbiak. So
I grew up playing.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
The Island guy with a father who played professionally kind
of yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
So he and I grew up playing in some release together,
playing pick up basketball a lot over at Saint Mary's,
and you know, when he got into college, she started
realizing that was I was doing some of the trainings,
that I could use some of the ball handling stuff
that you do, and you know, I need to get
my shot off quicker and things like that.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
That.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
So we just started working out kind of together.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
And then when he got to the pros, instead of
me working out with him, it was more of I
started training him in certain areas, and you know, then
we did a VHS together, you know, for for the
young kids, you know, started doing that DVDs and stuff
like that, but we put a whole workout tape together
to show kids how to train, and it was phenomenal
(19:24):
he actually did the whole workout without any cuts or interruptions.
It's one of the coolest things. You know, if people
could find it, you'll see an actual pro making a
ton of mistakes. And now that's what we wanted, you know,
wanted people to see, like the raw footage of uh,
this is an NBA All Star playing with alongside KG
and everything like that. And you know, he came out
to work with us, so that was great just to
(19:46):
have him kind of solidify that that, you know, I
helped him in that journey, but I mean, at the
end of the day, it was all him. He just
you know, was a phenomenal talent, phenomenal player. And and
then from there it was just little by little bits
and pieces of from players that were coming through the program.
We started getting a bunch of New York kids from
all over and all the boroughs. We started coming out
(20:07):
and training, and then I was I would take trips
to go see Jamiir Nelson in Philly.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I drive get up early in the morning, work them out.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
So anything I can do to show everybody how dedicated
I was to you know, basically basketball training and helping
players get better.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I did it.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
At that time to just keep growing the business. So yeah,
definitely took off. We started getting sponsorship deals. I had
six trainers working with me, and we ended up getting
a bunch of pre draft through Excel Sports. So we
ended up having probably eight ladder picks in a three
year span. You know, we're fifteen players you know, get drafted.
So it was it was a good run there, and
(20:44):
that was towards the tail end of my business career
in training and got me to get to the NBA level.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yeah, Tobias Harris a part of that as well.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Yeah, yes, he was. Yeah, so definitely, Uh, guys like Tobias.
He was a part of my first pre draft class
and I have a picture of him when he was
in probably eighth or ninth grade with a bad posture
defensively sitting in the back of a clinic that I had,
And yeah, guys like that just really helped solidify what
we did. You know, Him, Charles Jenkins Kemba Walker were
(21:20):
three of my guys for you know, the longest of time,
you know, where we had them a pre draft and
I saw them through their journey at the NBA level
until I got to the NBA. So very fortunate you know,
and what was great about is we had, you know,
a bunch of veterans that would come back and work
alongside these guys. So guys like Cyndiata Gains and Rajah Bell,
(21:42):
you know, Sylvan Landesberg. You know, the list goes on
of guys that would come back into the gym and
work out with the young guys and help them get better.
So it really was, you know, solidified that family atmosphere
we were trying to go for.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, and that and that world was starting. You know
what you mentioned that players are taking notice and that
you're that you're a guy that can get them better
and get them to the n b A. Uh. Coaches
started to take notice as well. And one of those
coaches was Jacques Vaughan who is in Orlando, and Orlando
had a lot of lottery picks around that time, and
(22:19):
and they were they were interviewing a lot of these
guys and working out potential draft picks. And you know,
your program starts to come up a lot in in
these talks, uh, and I think they kind of look
and said, hey, uh, maybe we should look and we're
going to have a lot of these young players that
were that were trying to develop maybe we should take
a look at this Jay Hernandez guy and uh, and
(22:41):
they called you down to your Do you recall how
that all came about with you ending up getting your
first coaching job in the NBA with the Magic and
Jock Bond.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Yeah, to this day, I still think it's an incredible story.
And I always give Jock a lot of credit because, uh,
the way he handled it and the way it all
went down was phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
But I think the.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Start of it was Tobias Harris getting traded to Orlando.
He ended up having a really good run for the
remainder of that season there, I think, probably averaging over
eighteen the game, you know, during that stretch. And that
summary said he was going to be back in Long
Island working with me, and so Jock had sent coach
Gunning Bred Gunning ended up coming out. He was an
(23:24):
assistant with Jay Wright and he was my assistant coach
in college, was an assistant for Jock. So he came
and watched the workout, and he went back and said,
he's in good hands. You know, he's working with Jay.
You know, I've known Jay a long time. So that
was the start of it. And then yeah, I think
there was maybe like a two year run of a
lot of those lottery picks going into workout for Orlando
(23:46):
and he would ask, where are you guys working out?
And they kept mentioning, you know, were with Jay Hernandez
pro Hoops, And so we ended up just it was great. Myself, Jock,
James Barrego and Brett Gunning had a dinner and little
Italy and it wasn't it wasn't a job and to
be run anything. It was just more like, hey, we
(24:06):
wanted to get to know your like practices and you
know how you got into this, and just more like
intrigued and we hit it off. And you know, maybe
a few months later a position opened up, and you know,
I said, would you be interested in this? And at
the time I said yes, with no intentions of taking
the job. I really just wanted to see if I
(24:27):
can get an offer and what that offer would be,
and then you know, great, you know down the line,
I can I use that as leverage for something else,
because I really thought that I would be running my
business for the rest of my life. My wife was
a tenured teacher in New York, you know, so moving
one town over for her was a big deal, let
alone going to Orlando.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
So I just kept saying, yes, let me, let me
keep doing this.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
And then as we got closer to everything again, just
the way Jock handled everything, It's like, listen, I know
you have camps and clinics set up, we have a
young team, but I want you clear you're clear minded.
I want you to make sure you divest properly, and
we'll see you here in September. So at that point
in time, it was just a two year deal because
Jack had already been there for two years, and uh,
(25:11):
you know, my wife Alison said, you know, go do
it for a year. You know, my daughter was a
senior at Saint Mary's. They were going to potentially win
a state championship. So we didn't want to disrupt any
of that. So I opted to go try it out,
you know, put the n BEY on the resume, and
if it didn't work out, it would have that almost
like a doctorate, uh you know, on my on my
(25:32):
resume for basketball to come back with and build some
connections and that that was kind of my mindset at
the time. And so, uh yeah, I gave it a shot,
and I said, me, coaching. Now, if I hired a
coach for that position, I'd want them here yesterday to
work with all those young guys, because I mean it
was who's who of lottery picks that were there, you know,
(25:54):
with Vucevich, Aaron Gordon, Tobias H. Foignierl for Payton, Oladipo.
I mean, list was was went on and on. So uh,
it was just a lot of good, good young talent,
really good guys that really wanted to be in the
gym and workout.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I have a couple of things I want to go
back to. First of all, did you remember where the
dinner was? Was it Angelo Tormina? Where was the dinner
at that time in little Italy?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
I don't remember. Yeah, you would have to you have
to get that one from Jack. Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
And the idea of going to the NBA was that
had that been a dream for you? Was that something
that perked, you know, like peaked, like went, Wow, these guys,
why I could be in the NBA? Or you know what?
Was there? Was there a real tug of war between
wanting to stay and do what you were doing.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
No, that was a real tug of war for me.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I guess it was maybe two years prior when Glenn
Grumwell was the GM at the Knicks. He had me
come in and interview and I was part of a
final interview process there, and uh, again, I just wanted
to go through the process for the experience of it
and you know, see what they were talking about when
it came to player development. And so that was just
an incredible experience. And then the following year, Jay Wright
(27:12):
brought me to Villanova and offered me a job there
as an assistant.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Timeline.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
There was a lot quicker, so he was like, hey,
you know, take the weekend, talk to the family. We'd
love to have you here. You know, we're trying to
build this thing, you know, kind of differently. You know,
in the past the past few years, they were getting
a lot of top tier talent because they had success.
But he was saying, no, you know what, we need
to get Villanova guys here, and we want to win
a championship here at Villanova the way we want to
(27:39):
do it. And it was a tremendous honor. But I
told coach, I said, you know, you know me, I
just can't leave people high and dry, and it's going
to be too quick of a decision for me to make,
so you know, I'm going to pass on it. And
at that time I remember him saying like, well, I
feel like you'll be in the NBA sooner than later,
you know, because of what you're doing, and you know
the way the NBA is going right now, they'll value
(28:01):
what you what you have to offer. And at that
point in time, that that got the wheels turning a
little bit like, Okay, if something did come, would i'd
be able to properly divest and make sure that my
trainers were still taken care of, and could I convince
the family to move and all those kinds of things.
So at that point in time, I would say that
started to plant the seed for me in regards to
(28:21):
maybe getting into coaching. But no, it was not an
easy decision. You know, I think most people would just
jump at the NBA. But you know, for me being
able to run the business the way I had, I
just had a lot of fun doing it, built some
great relationships and again my family was set living in
Long Island with my wife teaching, so eventually to have
(28:42):
her give our pretendorship was a huge deal. And so,
like I said, just the way that Jock handled it.
The way the magic we're dealing with the situation, you know,
gave me the utmost confidence that we're really looking out
for my best interest. And you know, when I got there,
it was all about learning, you know, the NBA terminology,
the way they did things, and it was a night
(29:02):
and day difference for me. Even though I had been
in basketball, you know, my whole life pretty much, I
felt lost for the first time in basketball, you know,
not knowing exactly what they were talking about in meetings
and not having much to offer at that point in time,
you know, And eventually it was like I just have
to ask one engaging question, you know, to get the
you know, the room talking and let them know that
(29:23):
I'm here. So that was my first goal, and then
second goal was just to learn everything I could about
how to dissect the game and you know, put scouting
reports together. When I didn't have scouts at that point
in time, I was working on scouts on the side
as if I was going to present it to the team.
So there was a lot of things that I tried
to do to just better myself and get really acclimated
(29:44):
to the NBA lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
So when you came in, were you because because you
get tendency Now for guys in the coaching pipeline in
the NBA, is we have developmental coaches, you kind of
get that reputation of being a developmental guy. Is that
a tough transition then to try and get the reputation
(30:07):
of being an all around NBA coach? Or is it? Sometimes?
Do you do? You do? You wear that title of
developmental coach with pride and know that that can maybe
get you further than other guys.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (30:24):
For me, you know, I know that's going to be
my strength and what got me in and so yeah,
I'll always have that as as part of my fabric
and who I am and how I can get on
the court and sweat with guys and build that sweat equity.
You know, I think that a lot of the creativity
that I've had within my business and running a business,
(30:47):
and my creativity that I had in terms of putting
workout programs together for players to help them get better,
I started to take that and transition it over to
scout and reports and how do we defend a guy
like Jokic and and you know, what what are we
going to do offensively? End of game when the team
goes his own or they take out their five minute
they switch one through five. So I felt like a
(31:09):
lot of that was a smooth transition for me, But
it takes time to develop that reputation because early on,
you know, could look at me and say, oh, he's
a great, you know, ball handling coach, and he gets
these guys really good with their with their handles, or
you know, we've seen the shooting increase for Tobias Harris
from year one to year two working with them, and
you know, obviously he's got you can help guys get
better in that area, and within what was happening in Orlando,
(31:33):
they had to be. There was a lot of turnover there.
So every year I was starting almost fresh for what
that new coaching staff might might know me for, even
though I had a whole year, but by the end
of the year I maybe had been doing more. They
only know me for the player development guy that was hired.
And so each year was just playing my part, learning
exactly how each coaching staff wanted to do things, and
(31:55):
then started learning again their terminology, the way they were
defending action and things like that. And finally when I
got my opportunity to start scouting and doing those kinds
of things. I felt more prepared to do that. But
I always tell younger coaches, find what your weaknesses are
and figure out a way to attack them and put
yourself in front of people. You know, do coaches clinics.
(32:18):
Ten coaches clinics, read different books, not just on coaching,
but on marketing, on sales, leadership, and then from there,
you know, I was, I had opportunities to coach in
summer league, I had an opportunity to coach in the
G league bubble during an NBA season, and you know,
I just always tried to find ways to enhance my
(32:38):
ability to become a better coach.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Well, that was ended up being with Charlotte right when
you now you you mentioned James Barrego was on Shock
Vaunt staff there in Orlando. Always started working with him.
He would eventually go to Charlotte. You end up at
Charlotte and then you're you were kind of overseeing that's
where you recently were overseeing player development there. Yeah, what
(33:03):
now led you to Brooklyn? How did that? We talked
about famously Shogva and recruiting you to the NBA. How
did it end up this transition now to to come
back home. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
I mean, I think for me, the experiences again that
I had in Charlotte, I think definitely opened some eyes
to two people around the league again and say, okay,
he's just not a development guy. So for my first
few years, I carried the title of, you know, director
of player Development, and so we had some tremendous success
(33:39):
with our young guys there and you know, developing some
some really good young talent. You know, we saw increases
in a lot of areas. You know, offensive list, you
know was one of the major areas, you know, shooting
and things of that nature. And you know, coach Barrigo
did a phenomenal zapp with with those young guys. You know,
Jay Triano did a great job with the offense there
(34:00):
as well. I learned a lot from him. You know,
he's with Sacramento. They have the number one offense in
the league right now. So by year two, you know,
we were doing offense and defense, so we had you know,
we broke it up that way. So I was on
the offensive side of the ball. Year three, I got
to coach in the G League bubble. You know, Year
four came back back on the offensive side of the ball,
(34:21):
you know, doing after timeouts. You know, So for a
few years I was doing all the ATO situations with
with coach Barrego, so it was in game seeing things
happen and seeing them unfold. And then last year with
Coach Clifford, it just gave me a tremendous amount.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Of work to do. Great for my growth as a coach.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
I learned so much from him, and you know, every
day we talked about you know, atos and special situations,
you know, both offensively and defensively. And during that time,
I was always communicating with Jock. You know, he was
just somebody that I looked to as a mentor. He's
just a great human being. And so anytime had decisions
I needed to make professionally, you know, I just would
(35:03):
reach out to Jock and say, hey, this is what
I'm thinking about.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
What do you think.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
You know, I've got this offer to maybe coach overseas
and I'm going to do the G League thing. And
so we would just talk about different different aspects of
things every time, you know, he had something going on
or you know, he was you know, changed over an
interim to actually getting the role here. You know, I'm
texting him and congratulating him. So we always stayed in contact,
and I think part of that was him seeing my
(35:27):
growth and you know, knowing what kind of energy I'm
going to bring uh to the roster and you know,
a lot of this is the kind of chemistry you
have as a coaching staff, and you know, so I
think that's what ended up leading me back here. You know,
it was just once once he knew that there was
going to be some openings, you know, I've got got
the call, and uh, you know, the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Was it an easier sell to come back home for
your wife than it was to leave New York and
go to Orlando?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
One hundred percent? Yeah, yeah, this is Uh.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
You know, when I first I had to keep it
even quiet for my family because I didn't want to
get anybody hopes up. And so, you know, finally, when
we knew it was going to happen and we told everybody,
everybody was just super amped up about it. And yeah,
now that we our kids are older, this will be
the first time we're doing the empty nester, you know,
high rise thing in Brooklyn. We've always had houses in
(36:22):
the burbs, so you know, this is it's going to
be a great experience and we're looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
You know, you mentioned that your connection to Jay Wright,
having played for him and then him recruiting you, trying
to get you at Villanova and kind of knowing what
he wanted to build there, you having something to common.
Mickel Bridges obviously played for Jay Wright at Villanova, and
you know he took he had he has a system there.
(36:51):
You know, at Villanova kind of he had a reputation
of you know, no one's greater than the team. It's
not we're not having these star one and done players.
We're building a program of guys who are going to
stay here for three four years that are going to
be really good fundamentally. And I think some people look
at that and say, well, we're not you know, you're
(37:11):
not building pros. But at the same time, then look
at all the pros now that maybe weren't as heralded
coming out of college. But when you look at what
Michel Bridge has done, when you look what Jalen Brunson
has done and Josh Hart players like that is there
was there was what's kind of the secret sauce in
(37:34):
that and that may have influenced you as a young
as a college player. I mean, I think you mentioned
a little bit of it before about knowing your roles
and things like that, but if you could, if you
could sort of break it down as to what's important
about player development and what you learn from that situation
that you bring into you currently right now is this
(37:56):
position with the Nets.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I think what I learned is that the players have
to be accountable to their development, and you know, that
was the biggest thing. You know, coaches are responsible for
helping you, but ultimately the ownership comes from the player,
and I think he coach Wright, did a great job
of getting players to understand that you need to lead
yourself and you have the ability to lead others in
(38:20):
your own way. And I think you see that from
the type of players these guys are. Some are more vocal,
some are a little bit quieter demeanor, but they all lead,
and so I think they lead themselves, they lead others,
and I think that's the biggest thing that you'll get
from a point guard or any anybody really who's played
for Jay. You know, I ended up playing that point
(38:42):
guard position for him, and being a captain under him
bears a lot of weight. So if you know, the
walk on gets in the game, it doesn't dive on
the floor. The walk on isn't getting yelled at. I
am because I was the one diving on the floor
all game, and I should be the one going at
that guy about why didn't you dive on the floor
at the end of the game even though we're up
(39:02):
thirty doesn't matter, you know. That's that's how we play
from from beginning to end. So yeah, I've already had
some some good talks with Michale about you know, my
time with Jay, his time, and not.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Much has changed.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
It's just he's gotten you know, better players over the years,
you know, obviously at Villanova, but you know, it's it's
still the same same principle. You know, the processes may
change some but his principles are very consistent and the
message has always been attitude for for coach right, and
they put attitude on a big sticker above every locker
room door. We had it all over hops for when
(39:37):
we're there. I know they have it at Villanova, and
that's that's where everything stems from.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
As a player development guy who worked with young players
preparing for the draft, you have a you have a
keen sense of probably when you walk in the gym
of who these guys are and who's gonna make it
who's not. What are what would be some things that
you would look at right away to determine whether or
(40:02):
not this is a player who's going to make it
in the league.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Yeah, I think it's a lot of it comes down
to how serious they are when they come into the
workout in regards to their conditioning. You know, if you
see guys that within ten or fifteen minutes are already gassed,
I'm like, this guy is not taking this serious enough.
Are they confident in their strengths? You know, they're in
the in our gym for a reason, and a lot
of times they go work out and they try to
(40:27):
show everything that they couldn't do for four years or
three years or two years in that workout. And you know,
so for me, I want to see guys that are
confident in their strengths, that communicate, well, you know, all
the little intangibles for me make a really good NBA player,
you know, at the end of the day, the small
things or everything, you know, when it comes to being
(40:49):
able to fit a roster. And so for me, I
think being able to see just guys understand how to play,
not trying to prove at the park playing one on
one the whole time, it's you know, within the confines
of this what is what it coached? What was the direction?
Could I follow the direction? Is there a joy for
playing the game? I think that the players that love
(41:11):
to play or and have the potential can go a
lot further. You know, we always say that the person
who loves the walk is going to go a lot
further than the person who loves the destination. And so
you know when I see that from players and they're
out there genuinely enjoying the experience, even though it is
a pressure cooker out there, we know that at the
NBA level, with all the big games that are going
(41:33):
to be out there, that that player is going to
be a guy that we can rely on down the.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Line, confident in your strengths. It's kind of a theme
here to this conversation. I feel like, because you think
about you, you knew what it was that got you
to the NBA as a coach. I mean, you knew
what it took to get you to Hofstra, You knew
what it you know, you talked about Jay wright you know,
kind of the old Doc Rivers line, you know, be
(42:00):
a star in your role and convincing guys to know
what it is that you do well and do that.
You know, you embrace the player development coming into the
NBA and knowing that you weren't hired to be you eventually.
You may have eventually been good at the excess and
o's and things, but that wasn't what you were hired
to do. You're hired to be a player development guy
(42:21):
and be you know, a strength in that role. And
it seems like that's the same message you have to players. Yeah,
you want to get better and do things you that
you try it, you know, work on things you're weak at.
But being you know, finding strength and what it is
that you do well is important, I think in any
any way of.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Life, without a doubt.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
I think if you look at anybody who's been great
at anything, they have known strengths and the opposition can't
do anything about it. So, you know, that's always the
biggest thing for any of the players that I've worked with,
or any of the players that I've had a chance
to connect with, is you know, doesn't matter if they
know what it is that you do because you're going
to be so great at it that they can't stop it.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
You know, it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
And so I think once you start to believe that
and you start to work on that stuff, and then
you start to see, Okay, my go to move is this,
I can get to that, and then here's my counter.
I start to realize, Wow, just off of those two
things alone, I can do a whole lot here. You know,
against smaller defenders, bigger defenders, it really doesn't matter. And
(43:26):
I think, like again, for me, it's being able to
bridge that gap over the summer of like, let's let's
continue to build, you know, certain aspects of your weaknesses
so that you can eventually be confident enough to do that.
But don't let people off the hook, you know. I
think that's what happens when you start working with players
early on. They want to show what they've been working on,
(43:46):
and it's a substitute for what they've been great at
and what they've got them to that point. So I
never wanted to substitute the strength. I want to make
sure that it compliments it at the end of the day.
And you know, over time we'll get there. You'll see,
you'll see big improvements from from a lot of players.
And that's the one thing I've seen here over the
last few weeks is, uh, you know, how how great
(44:09):
of a staff we have here currently, and how everybody's
connected from from the top down, and uh, you know,
for the first time, you know, I can I can
see that as a more of a holistic approach, and
that's exciting to me.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Do you have a defined role in the staff yet?
Are you at that point? And is it different? How
how different is it from your previous stops in Orlando
and Charlotte.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Yeah, we haven't talked about defined roles yet, you know.
So right now, I'm just working on different projects and
looking at some some some strengths of what other teams
have done, you know, coming up with my my idea
bank and you know, we'll talk as a staff and
you know, we'll have our coaches retreat and kind of
just hash out some things there. So I'm looking forward
(44:56):
to all that, just bringing you know, my years of
experience and and working for a lot of really good coaches.
You know, that's the one thing that you know, you
start to look at and when I had all the
changes that that happened, I was like, Man, how do
I grow individually? But I actually grew a lot because
of the people that I got to work with and
know over the over the years. You know a number
(45:17):
of them current head coaches in the NBA, former head
coaches in the NBA, and you know, so for me,
it might be something that I haven't been able to
utilize in five years or six years. But you know,
Jock may say, hey, we want to try this out
this year, and you know I might be like, Okay, cool.
You know, this is what maybe Scott Skoules did you
know back when, and might be something to look at
(45:39):
in terms of how we're going to great defensively, uh,
stuff like that. So yeah, so I'm looking forward to it.
Like I said, I'm here for the long haul and
uh just looking forward to to being a part of it.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
When you work with James, James Barrigo is I believe
the first Hispanic head coach in the NBA if I'm
not correct, And you know, you're you talked about really
gotten into a lot of where you know, the Puerto
Rican uh, you know, the national team and things like that.
But how do you view that in terms of, uh,
you know, thinking about your heritage and what that would
(46:14):
mean if you someday became a head coach.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
I think it would be great obviously anytime there's representation,
and you know, uh, and I always talk about diversity
of experiences as well. You know, just uh, you know,
my background coming from training and running my business lends
itself to a bunch of people you know and say,
well that's a path that I could take. And uh,
same thing, just the amount of people that reach out
(46:39):
to me that that feel a tremendous amount of pride
that you know, I'm of Puerto Rican descent, the first
assistant coach on the bench that that that has you
know that that is of Puerto Rican descent. So for
me being able to play in Puerto Rico, be able
to talk confidently and uh, just you know, knowingly about
what that is and and you know what that means
(47:01):
there because there are a lot of great coaches that
could have done this, you know better than I can
right now and just never had the opportunity. So you know,
for me to be able to keep climbing the ranks
and be the first to do it, you know, I
think what would mean a lot to a lot of
people and Hopefully we can see more coaches get an
opportunity to be at this level.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
See it to be it. Yes expression I always liked
to use before I let you go. I always wrap
up with this quick thing. Speaking of New York basketball coaches.
You remember the great Jim Valbano and his s PST
speech about never give up. Something that's always resonated with me.
(47:43):
But he said in that speech that to have a
full life, he said everybody should do three things every day.
They should laugh, cry, and think. So I wrap up
always with this, Jay Hernandez, what makes you laugh?
Speaker 2 (48:01):
My kids make me laugh?
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Actually, you know every day we have a family chat
and between the memes and you know, the different clips
that I get, I would say, between my kids and
my wife, we just we love each other, but we
we like each other a lot too, you know. And
that's not always the case for everybody. So for for me,
I would say, they make me laugh the most.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
I love that. Uh. The cry part is not always
something that's just sad, but it moves you emotionally. Everybody
should kind of have their emotions stirred. What's something that
maybe recently or in general gets you emotional.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Again, it's a family.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Is the fact that you know, we my wife and
I are making this journey for the first time on
our own. Every other stop has been with the family together,
the five of us. So I would say that's bringing
that's definitely tugging at the heart now and have that
transition happen. You know, they're all doing great things and uh,
(49:04):
you know that's that's part of our job as parents
is to see them grow and expand themselves. So uh,
but that's definitely something that that's that's that's weighing on me.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
And you have a daughter that actually went to work
for the Hornets, correct.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
Yeah, she's staying, Mikaela, she's there, she's staying. She's uh, loving,
loving her her job. And again in January she started
full time and uh, she was pulling me for interviews
and I loved just having that that interaction and you know,
ignoring her at times and you know, having her run after.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Me and not know what to call me. You know.
So we would always joke like, you can't you can't
say yo yo yo yo.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
You know, you got to make sure I see the
coach Hernandez, you know, So we were trying to you know,
have those like dinner talks about that. But yeah, she's
doing a phenomenal job creating, creating her own lane in
this industry.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Uh. Finally, at the think part, spend time in thought.
What the oculus outside Barkley SA or something that everybody
in the neighborhood can see walking around Brooklyn and coming
up through the subway coming into the arena. If you
could put a message on a board for all these
thousands of people, millions of people to uh to see
something you wanted people to think about, what do you
(50:15):
think that might be?
Speaker 2 (50:18):
For me?
Speaker 3 (50:18):
It always comes down to like chasing your own greatness.
And uh, I'm big on improvement, so I think it's
important to people to be themselves. Again, we talked about
confidence in your strengths and and confidence in your abilities,
and I think, uh, you know, one thing I stand
by always is that no one whoever accomplished anything great
was ever considered normal. And so I think that you know,
(50:42):
just be you b be abnormal and the way you
attack life, and you know how you love people and
you know, uh, how you work at your craft. So
I think that that's that's the message.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Well, Jay Arnan is, like I said, in the outset
of this. When I when I saw that they hire
the Nets hired you, I immediately thought back to that
conversation Tim and I had when we first he first
pointed you out in Orlando. And it's a nice circular
story here to get you back home and in Brooklyn.
(51:14):
And we really look forward to having you around the team,
and I look forward to getting to know you. And
I thank you so much for spending some time with
me here today.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
I appreciate it, thank you for the time, and definitely
look forward to senior at Barclays.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
All Right, but thanks to Jay Hernandez here on the
Voice of the Nets podcast, I want to plug another
podcast that just started recently, a limited series. It's going
to be five episodes. Hope you're tuning in if you're
a Net fan. It is a must listen. It's called
Something to Prove the Story of the two thousand and
two two thousand and three Nets. Those are the two
(51:51):
teams that went to the NBA Finals. It's an oral
history of those teams. You're going to hear a lot
from Rod Thorn, the architect of those teams, players including
Jason Kidd, Broadcasters like Iron Eagle and myself are on there,
the Caper, Tim Capstraw. It's narrated by the great Bill Raftery.
(52:12):
It's so great to hear Bill's voice associated with the
Nets again. So check that out. Something to prove the
story of the two thousand and two, two thousand and
three Nets wherever you get your podcasts. Tom Dowd worked
really hard on that, sort of Steve Goldberg, so please
check that out. My thanks to those guys as well,
(52:34):
and Isaac Lee, our engineer. We'll talk to you again
next time. Right here on the Voice of the Nets,
I'm Chris Carrino. Take care,
Uh, hey, what's going on. It's Chris Carino. This is
the Voice of the Nets podcast. Today we're going to
introduce you to another interesting person on the Nets basketball staff.
One of their new hires but not new to the area.
(00:24):
Jay Hernandez, a New York native, is now full circle
back in the area as an assistant coach, but also
full circle in his journey to the NBA that has
a connection to Jacques Vaughn, and you'll hear about that
here on this episode of the Voice of the Nets.
Jay Hernandez played at HOSTRA was once recruited by Tim Capstraw,
(00:48):
my radio partner, and you'll hear some Capper mentions in here.
I think there's about three Capper mentions in here, so
you want to stay tuned for that. But Jay Hernandez
a developmental coach. That was sort of the reputation that
he has coming to the Nets, and that's something that
didn't exist all that long ago. NBA teams have staffs
(01:13):
now of developmental coaches trying to take their young players
and make them better. It's a big part of NBA
basketball operations staffs. So we'll talk about his role, his background,
and his basketball journey it's Jay Hernandez right here on
the Voice of the Nets. So, Jay, I had admit
(01:38):
the first time that I heard about you, you had
just started working with the Orlando Magic and my longtime
radio partner, Tim Capstraw, the Kapper, he knows you from
working out on Long Island. He recruited you when you
were in high school and he pointed you out when
we were in Orlando and he said that guy is
(01:59):
a great coach and he should be on the NETS radar.
He's a New York guy. He should be on the
NETS radar. I just wanted to get that out off
the bat.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
He is the best.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I was just telling the story that when he recruited me,
I had no intentions of going to Wagner. I wanted
to get out of the area, but he nearly convinced
me to go there, just because of his personality, the
type of person he was, the coach he was, and
you know, basically wrote me a twelve page letter. And
(02:31):
he's the one coach that I remember having to reach
out to and feel really bad saying I'm not going
to that school. And we've kept a really close relationship
all these years.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
You just didn't want to you just didn't want to
get up at five thirty am to go to some
gym off campus, right, because they were doing construction. It
was I told Tim, he tell me that story about
how he had to practice because they were doing construction
on the gym and the you know, big tenure of
his coaching staff, and I'm like, how did you get
anybody to come there?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Right? It was all him.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I'm sold on that, you know, just all personality. He
got the most out of his team's tremendous coach. So
uh yeah, I would.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I would. I would have gotten up five thirty for him.
But at the end of the day, I had to
go a different direction.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Uh. Now he was he was recruiting you. You were
at Saint Dominic's in Oyster Bay, Long Island, right, And yes,
I will say though you are not, no all respect
to you, You're not the most famous basketball coach to
come out of Saint Dominic's now in Long Island.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Correct, That is correct.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
They have a plethora of coaches that have come out
of that small school. One of the reasons I picked
it was because it was considered more of.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
A basketball school.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
And yeah, Rick Patino obviously now at Saint John's and
Ralph Willard, Jimmy Christian coach at Boston College, my high
school teammate James Moran.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Jimmy Moran is in the.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
End being right now as well. So there's a there's
a lot of us out there right now. So it's
a predominant part.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I'll represent it. And and it's Brick Patino stealing your
thunder as a coach coming back to the New York
area this year.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
That's right. I'm hoping.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
I'm hoping that he can he can make it live
again in Queens. And that was always something that we
loved at Hofstra, playing against Saint John's every year and
having that little mini New York rivalry along with you know,
teams like I own and Manhattan College. I mean, there's
just a lot of good basketball here. So it's it's
nice to see uh, great coaches sticking around and being
a part of it.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Don't forget Ford them. I have to throw that in there,
because I'm a Ford them alone.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah okay, yeah they were at that time we beat them,
but yeah, we'll put them in the mix as well.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I'll tell you this, the first time I met Lou
Carnaseca was I was. I was a Fordham student doing
a game at Hofstra and Louis was just there in
the gym watching the game, and he and he and he,
we had him on at halftime and I actually got
to interview Luke Carna Sac as a college kid. That's
Ostra Gym's icon. Trying to think that you were you were?
(05:06):
You were not at Hostra at that point when I
was there, I was, You're a little younger than me.
But you didn't go directly from Saint Dominic's to Hostra.
You you made a stop over in New Hampshire first,
So why did you go to New Hampshire and then
what eventually brought you back home to Hostra. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
So I had a good mix of mid majors coming
UH to me late in my recruitment. You know, Davidson
ended up coming out San Diego. We played in a
tournament there above the Room Classic in La Joya, and
then there were a bunch of you know, kind of
mid majors in the area that that started offering and
(05:46):
for me, I wanted to go somewhere where I knew
I could play right away. At the time, they had
a really good UH Hospitality management school and I was
thinking about that that had built a new arena, and
so I was thinking, Okay, this could be a good scenario.
Plus played all the Eastern c Board schools and so
my family, you know, could all be at the games,
and that was that was a big, big part of
(06:08):
it as well. And when I got there, I realized
quickly it was a hockey school.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
It was crickets for basketball.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
And we ended up winning seven games that year, three
at the Buzzer, so I could have easily been four.
But it was definitely a really good experience. Hofstra at
the time wanted to red shirt me because of Speedy
was coming in the same year, and so I grew
up playing against Speedy.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I knew how good he was, and I was saying.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Well, I can go to these other schools and play
right away, compete against these guys. And I was okay
with that at the time. But you know, once I
saw what they were doing and who they were bringing
in and how they were operating under coach, and the
time was you know, Joe Jones, Brett Gunning who was
also in the NBA, Tom Pacor who's now Quinnipiac, just
(06:56):
a great staff. I was like, that's probably where my
fit is at this point in terms of my style
of play and things of that nature.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
So when I.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Made that call, I ended up red shirting anyway and
ended up going and getting my dual NBA.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
And we had a pretty good run there with with
coach right.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, coach would be Jay Wright, of course, the famous
coach you would go on to coach at Villanova. And
then you know you mentioned Tom Pikora who who was
an assistant there and then took over for Jay right
at Hostra, then later went to Fordham and now up
at Cunetpiac where he just took over. Uh I think
was Dunleavy just left there. But you also mentioned Speedy.
That's Speedy Claxton, great Christ the King player, right, and
(07:36):
anyone on the Hostra. Unfortunately, the the you bring up
a sour note there for net fans, the true net fans,
because as you know, I know, Speedy Claxton was a
great New York City product and played in Hostra. It's
a sore subject because he got a ring with the
(08:00):
Spurs and three at the Nets expense, and you know,
people think of and I was there court side for
that one my second year in the League and Game
six in San Antonio, Nets are as close as they've
ever been to an NBA title. There, they're in a
Game six, they're down three to two, they have a
sixteen point lead in the third quarter of that game,
(08:23):
and the Spurs going a nineteen nothing run bridging the
third and fourth quarter to win the championship. And it
wasn't man who Genobili going off. It wasn't Tim Duncan
going off. It wasn't Tony Parker, who was a rookie
going off. It was Speedy Claxton who came in with
that second unit and just lit up the Nett for
(08:45):
an eighteen nothing run. And I'm still I think I'm
still cleaning confetti out of my bag that I had
that night.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, now, it was I try to tell that story.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
You know, it's twenty years ago now, you know, obviously
when it happened, just tweeted about it, and yeah, I
wasn't even thinking about it now, but it was the Nets.
But I remember being super proud of him and happy
for him that he was able to represent kind of
the smaller guards, you know, the mid major guys, And yeah,
(09:17):
he really did a great job in that series and
that set him up for the remainder of his career.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So he played together.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, we played together for two years. We were in
the backcourt together for two years.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
And then when he graduated, we had seven seniors coming back.
So I think the story goes. Jay Wright had an
opportunity to accept the Rutgers job after speed he graduated,
but he held on and said I think we can
we can repeat and won another championship. I think he
was always eyeing Villanova and we had seven seniors coming back.
(09:50):
Norman Richardson, Brooklyn Product as well, made the NBA was
a part of that that roster, and we were just
very seasoned group, and you know, we competed at a
really high level.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
So you know, we had a really good year that year.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Ended up losing in the NCAA Tournament to UCLA that year,
but you know, we had some some pretty good moments
that season.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
What do you recall about playing for Jay Wright? What
stood out to you?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
What stet out to me mostly was his attention to detail,
you know, and then his ability to get everybody to
buy into the bigger, bigger costs, and so by I
would say mid to late season, you could see us
firing on all cylinders, and there was no question marks
about you know what your role was, and whatever that
(10:36):
role was, you didn't feel like you were in a
diminished role. You felt like you were part of something
big and that you were chasing greatness and we were
all in it together. So I think that's where his
ability lies, is his ability to connect with everybody and
be able to get the most out of his players.
So a guy like me who could never dunk and
(10:57):
never dunked in a game, could compete at a very
high level against some of the major division ones because
it gave me that confidence that you know, you can
do this and you're going to lead us tonight and
do it your way. And that was always his thing,
especially after Speedy graduated, and the nicest way possible just said,
you're not Speedy Clackson. You know, you're Jay Hernandez and
(11:18):
we expect you to be that for this team.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Well, you couldn't dunk, but you could defend, right, I
mean you were you all defense. You were the defensive
player of the year in your conference. Correct.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah, for the point guard from the point guard position,
which is you know, a difficult thing to do. I
tried to again, that was the confidence I had from
my teammates have in my back and the style of
play that that coach right instilled. You know, I was
able to pick up full court all game. You know,
it's a tremendous condition at that point in time. And yeah,
I learned a lot from just them in terms of technique,
(11:51):
you know, having the conditioning and then the hard aspect
of it and the want to do that definitely came
from my father, who played thirteen years in Puerto Rico,
was on the national team there and he was a
two time defensive player of the Year in that league
from that position as well. So you know, I always
took pride in being able to play both sides of
the ball.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
This is your father, Richard who So where did he
play college?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
So he went to Dollan College in Long Island, and
you know, he went to a Delphi Academy in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
He grew up in Canarsie.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
So this is definitely kind of a full circle moment
for for that side of the family, just having me
back in Brooklyn, and you know, there's a lot of excitement.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
There and now I know you're you know, your your
father's of Puerto rican descent, and he was he played
professionally in Puerto Rico, and you spent some time. You
were very young, but you had some experience living in
Puerto Rico and SENI your dad play. What do you
remember about that.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I just remember how how competitive it was at that time,
how exciting the end fronment was. I remember running around
with our mascot in baiom On and uh, you know,
shooting shots and the crowd going crazy, you know, so
like bringing my little gym bag to go with him.
So it was playing biddy basketball in the outdoor courts there.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
It was.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
It was a lot of fun. I remember when we
came back here back to Long Island. I was about
seven years old, so it was probably around two and
a half to close to seven, and getting to just
see him do his thing, and you know, it was
it was awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
I always wanted to go back there and play and
kind of represent my dad and you know, be a
part of that experience as a player myself.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
It was a really cool experience.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, which you did right after after Hofstra. Well you
had some time, but you you end up going and
playing professionally in Puerto rican So what was I know
you that that league is competitive, right, I mean, that's
a that's a pretty good league. It's produced a couple
of pros in the NBA. What was your experience like
there playing in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, it was great from a standpoint of guard play.
It was always really competitive. Even one of the times
when I was there, Carlos so Roya was playing, you know,
and they had a number of guys who were veteran
guys that actually played with my dad, that were on
the tail end of their career, who were you know,
Hall of famers there that were part of that experience.
(14:24):
I try to tell people the the toughness factor. You
have to be tough to be able to play there.
You have to be super skilled. You know, there's a
bunch of guys from the States, and then you know
you have guys like myself who you know, maybe grew
up in the States, but you know, come from you know,
Puerto Rican background. I can go there and play, so
(14:46):
you end up having like four guys that are you know,
kind of from the States that are playing there with
the guys that are that are from pr So for me,
it was really cool to kind of bridge that gap
for the guys that came, you know, from the States
and be able to community kate with uh with the
players that were there as well. And you know, I
was fortunate enough to captain two of the teams that
I was there for, so that was a big honor.
(15:08):
And yeah, the coaching as well. You know, I tell
people that just the level of coaches are phenomenal there
from from that area. And my father was coached by
some some great coaches, you know, including Flora Melendez who
was there, and then you know he was PJ. Carlissimo
coached him, Gene Bartow, you know, Phil Jackson got to
start in that league. So there's a lot of history
(15:30):
and tradition.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So you mentioned the coaches and the influence you had
there in Puerto Rico. You don't go directly from playing
professionally in Puerto Rico to coaching, you you kind of
you did go back to Hobstra, but it was not
the coach, correct, You went back into and worked in
the administration.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yeah, I was director of Strategic Planning and Admissions. So
they offered me a job. They like the way I
represented the university and they said we'd like to have
you here. I was going for Actually, I finished up
a dual MBA in marketing and management, and so while
I was doing that, they said, you know, we'd love
to have you be a part of this still, and
(16:14):
I accept a position. I was going and doing all
kinds of projects for the president of university and traveling,
going to college fairs and doing all of that kind
of stuff. And so I did that for about eight
or nine months, and I ended up getting to pharmaceutical
sales right after that.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So I did that for two years.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
But all during that time I was doing basketball training
and a lot of people didn't really know what that
was at the time. You know, it was a pretty
new industry. Now everybody talks about player development and things
like that. But back in nineteen ninety eight, I started
helping my dad, who was the first I guess trainer
aut of Island Garden in West Hempstead, doing stuff on
(16:54):
these side baskets, and so I just fell in love
with helping kids get better. So the kids I had,
they had money, and their parents understood what lessons were,
you know, from a standpoint of either tennis lessons or
a pitching coach. So they're like, oh, this makes sense.
You can help my son or daughter dribble better, shoot better,
that kind of thing. Eventually it got to the point
(17:16):
where those players were getting better and people were seeing
the work. Let's say, well I want to try it.
Early on typical New York it was like, why would
I pay you? I'm already nice, Like I'm not, I'm
not pay you to play to work out on my
basketball game. So but within a short amount of time,
I would say in about five within five years, people
started seeing players and be like, oh, that's a great move.
(17:36):
Who did they train with? And it started to become
more of a thing. So yeah, after two years, I
asked my wife, I said, do you mind if I
give up this gas card and car and benefits and
all that stuff to try to make this a real business.
And I ended up going to Puerto Rico one more
time and then I came back, had some clinics and
(17:56):
camp set up and gave ourselves about six months and
started a company called pro Hoops in two thousand and four,
and you know, I took off. So I was I
was very fortunate that my wife was okay with me
trying to venture into a new area and gave me
that confidence.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Did you have somebody or some player that would be
like the tipping point for you with that as a
player development, you know, business and school, somebody that kind
of all of a sudden, people went, wow, that guy
went and then you know kind of the damn breaks.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah. I mean my first pro was Wally's Erbiak. So
I grew up playing.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
The Island guy with a father who played professionally kind
of yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
So he and I grew up playing in some release together,
playing pick up basketball a lot over at Saint Mary's,
and you know, when he got into college, she started
realizing that was I was doing some of the trainings,
that I could use some of the ball handling stuff
that you do, and you know, I need to get
my shot off quicker and things like that.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
That.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
So we just started working out kind of together.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
And then when he got to the pros, instead of
me working out with him, it was more of I
started training him in certain areas, and you know, then
we did a VHS together, you know, for for the
young kids, you know, started doing that DVDs and stuff
like that, but we put a whole workout tape together
to show kids how to train, and it was phenomenal
(19:24):
he actually did the whole workout without any cuts or interruptions.
It's one of the coolest things. You know, if people
could find it, you'll see an actual pro making a
ton of mistakes. And now that's what we wanted, you know,
wanted people to see, like the raw footage of uh,
this is an NBA All Star playing with alongside KG
and everything like that. And you know, he came out
to work with us, so that was great just to
(19:46):
have him kind of solidify that that, you know, I
helped him in that journey, but I mean, at the
end of the day, it was all him. He just
you know, was a phenomenal talent, phenomenal player. And and
then from there it was just little by little bits
and pieces of from players that were coming through the program.
We started getting a bunch of New York kids from
all over and all the boroughs. We started coming out
(20:07):
and training, and then I was I would take trips
to go see Jamiir Nelson in Philly.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I drive get up early in the morning, work them out.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
So anything I can do to show everybody how dedicated
I was to you know, basically basketball training and helping
players get better.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I did it.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
At that time to just keep growing the business. So yeah,
definitely took off. We started getting sponsorship deals. I had
six trainers working with me, and we ended up getting
a bunch of pre draft through Excel Sports. So we
ended up having probably eight ladder picks in a three
year span. You know, we're fifteen players you know, get drafted.
So it was it was a good run there, and
(20:44):
that was towards the tail end of my business career
in training and got me to get to the NBA level.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yeah, Tobias Harris a part of that as well.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Yeah, yes, he was. Yeah, so definitely, Uh, guys like Tobias.
He was a part of my first pre draft class
and I have a picture of him when he was
in probably eighth or ninth grade with a bad posture
defensively sitting in the back of a clinic that I had,
And yeah, guys like that just really helped solidify what
we did. You know, Him, Charles Jenkins Kemba Walker were
(21:20):
three of my guys for you know, the longest of time,
you know, where we had them a pre draft and
I saw them through their journey at the NBA level
until I got to the NBA. So very fortunate you know,
and what was great about is we had, you know,
a bunch of veterans that would come back and work
alongside these guys. So guys like Cyndiata Gains and Rajah Bell,
(21:42):
you know, Sylvan Landesberg. You know, the list goes on
of guys that would come back into the gym and
work out with the young guys and help them get better.
So it really was, you know, solidified that family atmosphere
we were trying to go for.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, and that and that world was starting. You know
what you mentioned that players are taking notice and that
you're that you're a guy that can get them better
and get them to the n b A. Uh. Coaches
started to take notice as well. And one of those
coaches was Jacques Vaughan who is in Orlando, and Orlando
had a lot of lottery picks around that time, and
(22:19):
and they were they were interviewing a lot of these
guys and working out potential draft picks. And you know,
your program starts to come up a lot in in
these talks, uh, and I think they kind of look
and said, hey, uh, maybe we should look and we're
going to have a lot of these young players that
were that were trying to develop maybe we should take
a look at this Jay Hernandez guy and uh, and
(22:41):
they called you down to your Do you recall how
that all came about with you ending up getting your
first coaching job in the NBA with the Magic and
Jock Bond.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Yeah, to this day, I still think it's an incredible story.
And I always give Jock a lot of credit because, uh,
the way he handled it and the way it all
went down was phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
But I think the.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Start of it was Tobias Harris getting traded to Orlando.
He ended up having a really good run for the
remainder of that season there, I think, probably averaging over
eighteen the game, you know, during that stretch. And that
summary said he was going to be back in Long
Island working with me, and so Jock had sent coach
Gunning Bred Gunning ended up coming out. He was an
(23:24):
assistant with Jay Wright and he was my assistant coach
in college, was an assistant for Jock. So he came
and watched the workout, and he went back and said,
he's in good hands. You know, he's working with Jay.
You know, I've known Jay a long time. So that
was the start of it. And then yeah, I think
there was maybe like a two year run of a
lot of those lottery picks going into workout for Orlando
(23:46):
and he would ask, where are you guys working out?
And they kept mentioning, you know, were with Jay Hernandez
pro Hoops, And so we ended up just it was great. Myself, Jock,
James Barrego and Brett Gunning had a dinner and little
Italy and it wasn't it wasn't a job and to
be run anything. It was just more like, hey, we
(24:06):
wanted to get to know your like practices and you
know how you got into this, and just more like
intrigued and we hit it off. And you know, maybe
a few months later a position opened up, and you know,
I said, would you be interested in this? And at
the time I said yes, with no intentions of taking
the job. I really just wanted to see if I
(24:27):
can get an offer and what that offer would be,
and then you know, great, you know down the line,
I can I use that as leverage for something else,
because I really thought that I would be running my
business for the rest of my life. My wife was
a tenured teacher in New York, you know, so moving
one town over for her was a big deal, let
alone going to Orlando.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
So I just kept saying, yes, let me, let me
keep doing this.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
And then as we got closer to everything again, just
the way Jock handled everything, It's like, listen, I know
you have camps and clinics set up, we have a
young team, but I want you clear you're clear minded.
I want you to make sure you divest properly, and
we'll see you here in September. So at that point
in time, it was just a two year deal because
Jack had already been there for two years, and uh,
(25:11):
you know, my wife Alison said, you know, go do
it for a year. You know, my daughter was a
senior at Saint Mary's. They were going to potentially win
a state championship. So we didn't want to disrupt any
of that. So I opted to go try it out,
you know, put the n BEY on the resume, and
if it didn't work out, it would have that almost
like a doctorate, uh you know, on my on my
(25:32):
resume for basketball to come back with and build some
connections and that that was kind of my mindset at
the time. And so, uh yeah, I gave it a shot,
and I said, me, coaching. Now, if I hired a
coach for that position, I'd want them here yesterday to
work with all those young guys, because I mean it
was who's who of lottery picks that were there, you know,
(25:54):
with Vucevich, Aaron Gordon, Tobias H. Foignierl for Payton, Oladipo.
I mean, list was was went on and on. So uh,
it was just a lot of good, good young talent,
really good guys that really wanted to be in the
gym and workout.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I have a couple of things I want to go
back to. First of all, did you remember where the
dinner was? Was it Angelo Tormina? Where was the dinner
at that time in little Italy?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
I don't remember. Yeah, you would have to you have
to get that one from Jack. Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
And the idea of going to the NBA was that
had that been a dream for you? Was that something
that perked, you know, like peaked, like went, Wow, these guys,
why I could be in the NBA? Or you know what?
Was there? Was there a real tug of war between
wanting to stay and do what you were doing.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
No, that was a real tug of war for me.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I guess it was maybe two years prior when Glenn
Grumwell was the GM at the Knicks. He had me
come in and interview and I was part of a
final interview process there, and uh, again, I just wanted
to go through the process for the experience of it
and you know, see what they were talking about when
it came to player development. And so that was just
an incredible experience. And then the following year, Jay Wright
(27:12):
brought me to Villanova and offered me a job there
as an assistant.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Timeline.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
There was a lot quicker, so he was like, hey,
you know, take the weekend, talk to the family. We'd
love to have you here. You know, we're trying to
build this thing, you know, kind of differently. You know,
in the past the past few years, they were getting
a lot of top tier talent because they had success.
But he was saying, no, you know what, we need
to get Villanova guys here, and we want to win
a championship here at Villanova the way we want to
(27:39):
do it. And it was a tremendous honor. But I
told coach, I said, you know, you know me, I
just can't leave people high and dry, and it's going
to be too quick of a decision for me to make,
so you know, I'm going to pass on it. And
at that time I remember him saying like, well, I
feel like you'll be in the NBA sooner than later,
you know, because of what you're doing, and you know
the way the NBA is going right now, they'll value
(28:01):
what you what you have to offer. And at that
point in time, that that got the wheels turning a
little bit like, Okay, if something did come, would i'd
be able to properly divest and make sure that my
trainers were still taken care of, and could I convince
the family to move and all those kinds of things.
So at that point in time, I would say that
started to plant the seed for me in regards to
(28:21):
maybe getting into coaching. But no, it was not an
easy decision. You know, I think most people would just
jump at the NBA. But you know, for me being
able to run the business the way I had, I
just had a lot of fun doing it, built some
great relationships and again my family was set living in
Long Island with my wife teaching, so eventually to have
(28:42):
her give our pretendorship was a huge deal. And so,
like I said, just the way that Jock handled it.
The way the magic we're dealing with the situation, you know,
gave me the utmost confidence that we're really looking out
for my best interest. And you know, when I got there,
it was all about learning, you know, the NBA terminology,
the way they did things, and it was a night
(29:02):
and day difference for me. Even though I had been
in basketball, you know, my whole life pretty much, I
felt lost for the first time in basketball, you know,
not knowing exactly what they were talking about in meetings
and not having much to offer at that point in time,
you know, And eventually it was like I just have
to ask one engaging question, you know, to get the
you know, the room talking and let them know that
(29:23):
I'm here. So that was my first goal, and then
second goal was just to learn everything I could about
how to dissect the game and you know, put scouting
reports together. When I didn't have scouts at that point
in time, I was working on scouts on the side
as if I was going to present it to the team.
So there was a lot of things that I tried
to do to just better myself and get really acclimated
(29:44):
to the NBA lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
So when you came in, were you because because you
get tendency Now for guys in the coaching pipeline in
the NBA, is we have developmental coaches, you kind of
get that reputation of being a developmental guy. Is that
a tough transition then to try and get the reputation
(30:07):
of being an all around NBA coach? Or is it? Sometimes?
Do you do? You do? You wear that title of
developmental coach with pride and know that that can maybe
get you further than other guys.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (30:24):
For me, you know, I know that's going to be
my strength and what got me in and so yeah,
I'll always have that as as part of my fabric
and who I am and how I can get on
the court and sweat with guys and build that sweat equity.
You know, I think that a lot of the creativity
that I've had within my business and running a business,
(30:47):
and my creativity that I had in terms of putting
workout programs together for players to help them get better,
I started to take that and transition it over to
scout and reports and how do we defend a guy
like Jokic and and you know, what what are we
going to do offensively? End of game when the team
goes his own or they take out their five minute
they switch one through five. So I felt like a
(31:09):
lot of that was a smooth transition for me, But
it takes time to develop that reputation because early on,
you know, could look at me and say, oh, he's
a great, you know, ball handling coach, and he gets
these guys really good with their with their handles, or
you know, we've seen the shooting increase for Tobias Harris
from year one to year two working with them, and
you know, obviously he's got you can help guys get
better in that area, and within what was happening in Orlando,
(31:33):
they had to be. There was a lot of turnover there.
So every year I was starting almost fresh for what
that new coaching staff might might know me for, even
though I had a whole year, but by the end
of the year I maybe had been doing more. They
only know me for the player development guy that was hired.
And so each year was just playing my part, learning
exactly how each coaching staff wanted to do things, and
(31:55):
then started learning again their terminology, the way they were
defending action and things like that. And finally when I
got my opportunity to start scouting and doing those kinds
of things. I felt more prepared to do that. But
I always tell younger coaches, find what your weaknesses are
and figure out a way to attack them and put
yourself in front of people. You know, do coaches clinics.
(32:18):
Ten coaches clinics, read different books, not just on coaching,
but on marketing, on sales, leadership, and then from there,
you know, I was, I had opportunities to coach in
summer league, I had an opportunity to coach in the
G league bubble during an NBA season, and you know,
I just always tried to find ways to enhance my
(32:38):
ability to become a better coach.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Well, that was ended up being with Charlotte right when
you now you you mentioned James Barrego was on Shock
Vaunt staff there in Orlando. Always started working with him.
He would eventually go to Charlotte. You end up at
Charlotte and then you're you were kind of overseeing that's
where you recently were overseeing player development there. Yeah, what
(33:03):
now led you to Brooklyn? How did that? We talked
about famously Shogva and recruiting you to the NBA. How
did it end up this transition now to to come
back home. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
I mean, I think for me, the experiences again that
I had in Charlotte, I think definitely opened some eyes
to two people around the league again and say, okay,
he's just not a development guy. So for my first
few years, I carried the title of, you know, director
of player Development, and so we had some tremendous success
(33:39):
with our young guys there and you know, developing some
some really good young talent. You know, we saw increases
in a lot of areas. You know, offensive list, you
know was one of the major areas, you know, shooting
and things of that nature. And you know, coach Barrigo
did a phenomenal zapp with with those young guys. You know,
Jay Triano did a great job with the offense there
(34:00):
as well. I learned a lot from him. You know,
he's with Sacramento. They have the number one offense in
the league right now. So by year two, you know,
we were doing offense and defense, so we had you know,
we broke it up that way. So I was on
the offensive side of the ball. Year three, I got
to coach in the G League bubble. You know, Year
four came back back on the offensive side of the ball,
(34:21):
you know, doing after timeouts. You know, So for a
few years I was doing all the ATO situations with
with coach Barrego, so it was in game seeing things
happen and seeing them unfold. And then last year with
Coach Clifford, it just gave me a tremendous amount.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Of work to do. Great for my growth as a coach.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
I learned so much from him, and you know, every
day we talked about you know, atos and special situations,
you know, both offensively and defensively. And during that time,
I was always communicating with Jock. You know, he was
just somebody that I looked to as a mentor. He's
just a great human being. And so anytime had decisions
I needed to make professionally, you know, I just would
(35:03):
reach out to Jock and say, hey, this is what
I'm thinking about.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
What do you think.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
You know, I've got this offer to maybe coach overseas
and I'm going to do the G League thing. And
so we would just talk about different different aspects of
things every time, you know, he had something going on
or you know, he was you know, changed over an
interim to actually getting the role here. You know, I'm
texting him and congratulating him. So we always stayed in contact,
and I think part of that was him seeing my
(35:27):
growth and you know, knowing what kind of energy I'm
going to bring uh to the roster and you know,
a lot of this is the kind of chemistry you
have as a coaching staff, and you know, so I
think that's what ended up leading me back here. You know,
it was just once once he knew that there was
going to be some openings, you know, I've got got
the call, and uh, you know, the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Was it an easier sell to come back home for
your wife than it was to leave New York and
go to Orlando?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
One hundred percent? Yeah, yeah, this is Uh.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
You know, when I first I had to keep it
even quiet for my family because I didn't want to
get anybody hopes up. And so, you know, finally, when
we knew it was going to happen and we told everybody,
everybody was just super amped up about it. And yeah,
now that we our kids are older, this will be
the first time we're doing the empty nester, you know,
high rise thing in Brooklyn. We've always had houses in
(36:22):
the burbs, so you know, this is it's going to
be a great experience and we're looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
You know, you mentioned that your connection to Jay Wright,
having played for him and then him recruiting you, trying
to get you at Villanova and kind of knowing what
he wanted to build there, you having something to common.
Mickel Bridges obviously played for Jay Wright at Villanova, and
you know he took he had he has a system there.
(36:51):
You know, at Villanova kind of he had a reputation
of you know, no one's greater than the team. It's
not we're not having these star one and done players.
We're building a program of guys who are going to
stay here for three four years that are going to
be really good fundamentally. And I think some people look
at that and say, well, we're not you know, you're
(37:11):
not building pros. But at the same time, then look
at all the pros now that maybe weren't as heralded
coming out of college. But when you look at what
Michel Bridge has done, when you look what Jalen Brunson
has done and Josh Hart players like that is there
was there was what's kind of the secret sauce in
(37:34):
that and that may have influenced you as a young
as a college player. I mean, I think you mentioned
a little bit of it before about knowing your roles
and things like that, but if you could, if you
could sort of break it down as to what's important
about player development and what you learn from that situation
that you bring into you currently right now is this
(37:56):
position with the Nets.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I think what I learned is that the players have
to be accountable to their development, and you know, that
was the biggest thing. You know, coaches are responsible for
helping you, but ultimately the ownership comes from the player,
and I think he coach Wright, did a great job
of getting players to understand that you need to lead
yourself and you have the ability to lead others in
(38:20):
your own way. And I think you see that from
the type of players these guys are. Some are more vocal,
some are a little bit quieter demeanor, but they all lead,
and so I think they lead themselves, they lead others,
and I think that's the biggest thing that you'll get
from a point guard or any anybody really who's played
for Jay. You know, I ended up playing that point
(38:42):
guard position for him, and being a captain under him
bears a lot of weight. So if you know, the
walk on gets in the game, it doesn't dive on
the floor. The walk on isn't getting yelled at. I
am because I was the one diving on the floor
all game, and I should be the one going at
that guy about why didn't you dive on the floor
at the end of the game even though we're up
(39:02):
thirty doesn't matter, you know. That's that's how we play
from from beginning to end. So yeah, I've already had
some some good talks with Michale about you know, my
time with Jay, his time, and not.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Much has changed.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
It's just he's gotten you know, better players over the years,
you know, obviously at Villanova, but you know, it's it's
still the same same principle. You know, the processes may
change some but his principles are very consistent and the
message has always been attitude for for coach right, and
they put attitude on a big sticker above every locker
room door. We had it all over hops for when
(39:37):
we're there. I know they have it at Villanova, and
that's that's where everything stems from.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
As a player development guy who worked with young players
preparing for the draft, you have a you have a
keen sense of probably when you walk in the gym
of who these guys are and who's gonna make it
who's not. What are what would be some things that
you would look at right away to determine whether or
(40:02):
not this is a player who's going to make it
in the league.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Yeah, I think it's a lot of it comes down
to how serious they are when they come into the
workout in regards to their conditioning. You know, if you
see guys that within ten or fifteen minutes are already gassed,
I'm like, this guy is not taking this serious enough.
Are they confident in their strengths? You know, they're in
the in our gym for a reason, and a lot
of times they go work out and they try to
(40:27):
show everything that they couldn't do for four years or
three years or two years in that workout. And you know,
so for me, I want to see guys that are
confident in their strengths, that communicate, well, you know, all
the little intangibles for me make a really good NBA player,
you know, at the end of the day, the small
things or everything, you know, when it comes to being
(40:49):
able to fit a roster. And so for me, I
think being able to see just guys understand how to play,
not trying to prove at the park playing one on
one the whole time, it's you know, within the confines
of this what is what it coached? What was the direction?
Could I follow the direction? Is there a joy for
playing the game? I think that the players that love
(41:11):
to play or and have the potential can go a
lot further. You know, we always say that the person
who loves the walk is going to go a lot
further than the person who loves the destination. And so
you know when I see that from players and they're
out there genuinely enjoying the experience, even though it is
a pressure cooker out there, we know that at the
NBA level, with all the big games that are going
(41:33):
to be out there, that that player is going to
be a guy that we can rely on down the.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Line, confident in your strengths. It's kind of a theme
here to this conversation. I feel like, because you think
about you, you knew what it was that got you
to the NBA as a coach. I mean, you knew
what it took to get you to Hofstra, You knew
what it you know, you talked about Jay wright you know,
kind of the old Doc Rivers line, you know, be
(42:00):
a star in your role and convincing guys to know
what it is that you do well and do that.
You know, you embrace the player development coming into the
NBA and knowing that you weren't hired to be you eventually.
You may have eventually been good at the excess and
o's and things, but that wasn't what you were hired
to do. You're hired to be a player development guy
(42:21):
and be you know, a strength in that role. And
it seems like that's the same message you have to players. Yeah,
you want to get better and do things you that
you try it, you know, work on things you're weak at.
But being you know, finding strength and what it is
that you do well is important, I think in any
any way of.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Life, without a doubt.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
I think if you look at anybody who's been great
at anything, they have known strengths and the opposition can't
do anything about it. So, you know, that's always the
biggest thing for any of the players that I've worked with,
or any of the players that I've had a chance
to connect with, is you know, doesn't matter if they
know what it is that you do because you're going
to be so great at it that they can't stop it.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
You know, it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
And so I think once you start to believe that
and you start to work on that stuff, and then
you start to see, Okay, my go to move is this,
I can get to that, and then here's my counter.
I start to realize, Wow, just off of those two
things alone, I can do a whole lot here. You know,
against smaller defenders, bigger defenders, it really doesn't matter. And
(43:26):
I think, like again, for me, it's being able to
bridge that gap over the summer of like, let's let's
continue to build, you know, certain aspects of your weaknesses
so that you can eventually be confident enough to do that.
But don't let people off the hook, you know. I
think that's what happens when you start working with players
early on. They want to show what they've been working on,
(43:46):
and it's a substitute for what they've been great at
and what they've got them to that point. So I
never wanted to substitute the strength. I want to make
sure that it compliments it at the end of the day.
And you know, over time we'll get there. You'll see,
you'll see big improvements from from a lot of players.
And that's the one thing I've seen here over the
last few weeks is, uh, you know, how how great
(44:09):
of a staff we have here currently, and how everybody's
connected from from the top down, and uh, you know,
for the first time, you know, I can I can
see that as a more of a holistic approach, and
that's exciting to me.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Do you have a defined role in the staff yet?
Are you at that point? And is it different? How
how different is it from your previous stops in Orlando
and Charlotte.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Yeah, we haven't talked about defined roles yet, you know.
So right now, I'm just working on different projects and
looking at some some some strengths of what other teams
have done, you know, coming up with my my idea
bank and you know, we'll talk as a staff and
you know, we'll have our coaches retreat and kind of
just hash out some things there. So I'm looking forward
(44:56):
to all that, just bringing you know, my years of
experience and and working for a lot of really good coaches.
You know, that's the one thing that you know, you
start to look at and when I had all the
changes that that happened, I was like, Man, how do
I grow individually? But I actually grew a lot because
of the people that I got to work with and
know over the over the years. You know a number
(45:17):
of them current head coaches in the NBA, former head
coaches in the NBA, and you know, so for me,
it might be something that I haven't been able to
utilize in five years or six years. But you know,
Jock may say, hey, we want to try this out
this year, and you know I might be like, Okay, cool.
You know, this is what maybe Scott Skoules did you
know back when, and might be something to look at
(45:39):
in terms of how we're going to great defensively, uh,
stuff like that. So yeah, so I'm looking forward to it.
Like I said, I'm here for the long haul and
uh just looking forward to to being a part of it.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
When you work with James, James Barrigo is I believe
the first Hispanic head coach in the NBA if I'm
not correct, And you know, you're you talked about really
gotten into a lot of where you know, the Puerto
Rican uh, you know, the national team and things like that.
But how do you view that in terms of, uh,
you know, thinking about your heritage and what that would
(46:14):
mean if you someday became a head coach.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
I think it would be great obviously anytime there's representation,
and you know, uh, and I always talk about diversity
of experiences as well. You know, just uh, you know,
my background coming from training and running my business lends
itself to a bunch of people you know and say,
well that's a path that I could take. And uh,
same thing, just the amount of people that reach out
(46:39):
to me that that feel a tremendous amount of pride
that you know, I'm of Puerto Rican descent, the first
assistant coach on the bench that that that has you
know that that is of Puerto Rican descent. So for
me being able to play in Puerto Rico, be able
to talk confidently and uh, just you know, knowingly about
what that is and and you know what that means
(47:01):
there because there are a lot of great coaches that
could have done this, you know better than I can
right now and just never had the opportunity. So you know,
for me to be able to keep climbing the ranks
and be the first to do it, you know, I
think what would mean a lot to a lot of
people and Hopefully we can see more coaches get an
opportunity to be at this level.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
See it to be it. Yes expression I always liked
to use before I let you go. I always wrap
up with this quick thing. Speaking of New York basketball coaches.
You remember the great Jim Valbano and his s PST
speech about never give up. Something that's always resonated with me.
(47:43):
But he said in that speech that to have a
full life, he said everybody should do three things every day.
They should laugh, cry, and think. So I wrap up
always with this, Jay Hernandez, what makes you laugh?
Speaker 2 (48:01):
My kids make me laugh?
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Actually, you know every day we have a family chat
and between the memes and you know, the different clips
that I get, I would say, between my kids and
my wife, we just we love each other, but we
we like each other a lot too, you know. And
that's not always the case for everybody. So for for me,
I would say, they make me laugh the most.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
I love that. Uh. The cry part is not always
something that's just sad, but it moves you emotionally. Everybody
should kind of have their emotions stirred. What's something that
maybe recently or in general gets you emotional.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Again, it's a family.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Is the fact that you know, we my wife and
I are making this journey for the first time on
our own. Every other stop has been with the family together,
the five of us. So I would say that's bringing
that's definitely tugging at the heart now and have that
transition happen. You know, they're all doing great things and uh,
(49:04):
you know that's that's part of our job as parents
is to see them grow and expand themselves. So uh,
but that's definitely something that that's that's that's weighing on me.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
And you have a daughter that actually went to work
for the Hornets, correct.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
Yeah, she's staying, Mikaela, she's there, she's staying. She's uh, loving,
loving her her job. And again in January she started
full time and uh, she was pulling me for interviews
and I loved just having that that interaction and you know,
ignoring her at times and you know, having her run after.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Me and not know what to call me. You know.
So we would always joke like, you can't you can't
say yo yo yo yo.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
You know, you got to make sure I see the
coach Hernandez, you know, So we were trying to you know,
have those like dinner talks about that. But yeah, she's
doing a phenomenal job creating, creating her own lane in
this industry.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Uh. Finally, at the think part, spend time in thought.
What the oculus outside Barkley SA or something that everybody
in the neighborhood can see walking around Brooklyn and coming
up through the subway coming into the arena. If you
could put a message on a board for all these
thousands of people, millions of people to uh to see
something you wanted people to think about, what do you
(50:15):
think that might be?
Speaker 2 (50:18):
For me?
Speaker 3 (50:18):
It always comes down to like chasing your own greatness.
And uh, I'm big on improvement, so I think it's
important to people to be themselves. Again, we talked about
confidence in your strengths and and confidence in your abilities,
and I think, uh, you know, one thing I stand
by always is that no one whoever accomplished anything great
was ever considered normal. And so I think that you know,
(50:42):
just be you b be abnormal and the way you
attack life, and you know how you love people and
you know, uh, how you work at your craft. So
I think that that's that's the message.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Well, Jay Arnan is, like I said, in the outset
of this. When I when I saw that they hire
the Nets hired you, I immediately thought back to that
conversation Tim and I had when we first he first
pointed you out in Orlando. And it's a nice circular
story here to get you back home and in Brooklyn.
(51:14):
And we really look forward to having you around the team,
and I look forward to getting to know you. And
I thank you so much for spending some time with
me here today.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
I appreciate it, thank you for the time, and definitely
look forward to senior at Barclays.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
All Right, but thanks to Jay Hernandez here on the
Voice of the Nets podcast, I want to plug another
podcast that just started recently, a limited series. It's going
to be five episodes. Hope you're tuning in if you're
a Net fan. It is a must listen. It's called
Something to Prove the Story of the two thousand and
two two thousand and three Nets. Those are the two
(51:51):
teams that went to the NBA Finals. It's an oral
history of those teams. You're going to hear a lot
from Rod Thorn, the architect of those teams, players including
Jason Kidd, Broadcasters like Iron Eagle and myself are on there,
the Caper, Tim Capstraw. It's narrated by the great Bill Raftery.
(52:12):
It's so great to hear Bill's voice associated with the
Nets again. So check that out. Something to prove the
story of the two thousand and two, two thousand and
three Nets wherever you get your podcasts. Tom Dowd worked
really hard on that, sort of Steve Goldberg, so please
check that out. My thanks to those guys as well,
(52:34):
and Isaac Lee, our engineer. We'll talk to you again
next time. Right here on the Voice of the Nets,
I'm Chris Carrino. Take care,
Host
Chris Carrino
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