The Brooklyn Nets have a direction now, and it’s not the kind that comes with a star player demanding a trade out. It’s the slow, sometimes ugly kind — a rebuild built on young guards and the veterans willing to teach them. Keon Ellis is one of those veterans, and it turns out his old coach Jordi Fernandez was the reason he ended up in Brooklyn.
Ellis signed a two-year, $19 million deal with the Nets on the first night of free agency. That’s real money for a guy who got traded at the deadline last season and then barely played for the Cavaliers down the stretch. But Fernandez saw something he wanted. And he went after it.
“From what I heard, Jordi was pulling for me really hard,” Ellis said. “I know the way he coaches. He’s very passionate. He’s about the right things. He wants to win. So, the familiarity right there was definitely good. Even when I was playing with Dennis [Schroder] this season, he was saying he loved Jordi as a coach, too. So for other guys to be kind of saying the same things, you just know he’s about the right things.”
What Ellis brings to a backcourt full of rookies
Brooklyn’s backcourt right now is basically a daycare for first- and second-year players. Rookie Mikel Brown Jr. and sophomores Egor Demin, Nolan Traore and Drake Powell are all going to need minutes and reps. That is a lot of inexperience. The Nets ranked 25th in point-of-attack defense last season, and it showed every night.
Ellis is not flashy. He averaged single-digit points in his best season with Sacramento. But over four years he has shot 40.7 percent from three, and he guards the kind of players who make young guards look foolish. He knows his role. That is exactly what Fernandez needs right now.
“It’s just about the effort,” Ellis said of his defense. “I go out there and try to make it tough on guys. You’re playing against the best players in the world. They’re gonna score; they’re gonna get to their spots. You’re gonna have bad defensive games and good defensive games. But the mindset of trying to do the right things every night, be in the right spots, and just attack the game plan, that’ll help everyone accomplish the goal.”
Ellis will be sharing that responsibility with Julius Randle, Michael Porter Jr. and Terance Mann, the other veterans Fernandez is leaning on as examples for the kids. It is not a championship roster yet. But it is a roster with a clear identity for the first time in a while.
Stability was the draw
Ellis’ last two seasons were chaos. He went from Sacramento to Cleveland at the trade deadline, then watched his minutes disappear in the playoffs. He said the thing he wanted most was consistency. Brooklyn offered that, plus a role where he knows exactly what is expected.
“Just the consistency and an established role,” Ellis said. “A lot of things were up and down with moving parts [the last couple of seasons], and you just never really knew what was going on. The consistency really helped with that [in 2024-25 with the Kings]. You knew what was going on. There weren’t too many moving parts. So, that was just the biggest thing.”
Fernandez has a short track record as a head coach, but he has shown a real ability to get the most out of veterans who fit his system. Ellis looks like the next test case. If it works, the Nets might actually have something to build on. If it does not, well, it is a two-year deal. The risk is low. The upside is a defensive anchor who can shoot and does not mind being the guy nobody talks about.
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