The mayor of Badalona (Barcelonès Nord), Xavier Garcia Albiol, has announced that during the month of May he will bring to the plenary session of the City Council the proposal to appoint Jordi Fernández Torres as the city's favorite son, the city's highest honorary distinction.
Jordi Fernández, born on December 27, 1982 in Badalona, was presented yesterday as head coach of the New York Brooklyn Nets franchise of the NBA, becoming the first Spaniard to lead a team in the best professional basketball league in the world. . So far, only four people born outside the United States have managed a team there.
“I have been in the NBA for 15 years, but I was born and raised in Badalona. And I don't know if you know it, but it is one of the best basketball cities in the world. There are many great players and coaches from my city." These were one of his first words in his presentation as head of the Brooklyn Nets bench before the media around the world.
With a degree in Sports Sciences, Jordi Fernández, 41, has spent a good part of his career in the United States where he landed in 2006, earning recognition from teams and the biggest stars of the NBA ever since. At only 23 years old, in Las Vegas, he began training professional players during the holidays. Only three years later, in 2009, the legendary coach Mike Brown incorporated him into the coaching staff of the Cleveland Cavaliers as a coach specializing in player development, where he coincided with figures of the stature of LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. His experience expanded, being an assistant with the Denver Nuggets and Sacramento Kings. Precisely, on December 15, 2022, he became the first Catalan to coach an NBA team, when Sacramento's head coach was expelled and he assumed the role from him.
Likewise, Jordi Fernández also has national team experience, being an assistant coach of the Nigerian national team under Mike Brown at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan and more recently, as coach of the Canadian men's basketball team, he won the medal of bronze in the 2023 World Cup defeating the United States team.
The number of Jordi Fernández will be added as the favorite son of Badalona to the list of personalities that includes the swimmer Mireia Belmonte; the singer Miguel Poveda; the actor Enric Borràs, the historian and archaeologist Joaquim Font i Cussó; and who was mayor of Badalona, Salvador Serentill i Costa.
