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NEW YORK — The Brooklyn Nets have taken care of one of their most important tasks this offseason by hiring former Sacramento Kings assistant Jordi Fernandez as the head coach to lead the team into the future. Brooklyn still has plenty of matters to take care of over the course of this summer, but one player should be available for action.
“Dariq (Whitehead) should play in summer league, should be available in summer league,” Nets general manager Sean Marks said of the rookie on Wednesday following Fernandez’s introductory press conference. Whitehead, the 22nd overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, played just 15 games for the Nets this season between Brooklyn (two) and Long Island (13) due to a variety of injuries.
Whitehead came into the 2023-24 season less than 100% healthy given that he was already recovering from offseason foot surgery to address an issue that he had been dealing with since before his freshman season at Duke University. Whitehead was eventually able to play for Long Island and Brooklyn during the first half of the season, but his season essentially ended on Jan. 19 when the team diagnosed him with a left shin stress reaction.
On Jan. 29, the team ruled out Whitehead for the rest of the season as he had successful surgery to address the stress reaction in his left shin. Since then, Whitehead has been recovering and notably wasn’t in a boot while at Fernandez’s press conference.
“Whether or not he plays the entire summer league or not, that’ll be TBD,” Marks said of Whitehead. “But, the plan right now is he’s in the gym every day. He was in here this morning, so hopefully, he’s getting himself ready and robust enough to play in summer league.”