LOS ANGELES, APRIL 12 (US): Frank Vogel led the 17th championship in Los Angeles Lakers history in his first season on the bench.
Exactly 18 months after that victory, it also became part of the Lakers’ past.
The Lakers fired Vogel on Monday, picking their title-winning coach to post their first downfall in one of the most disappointing seasons in NBA history, the Associated Press reports.
Los Angeles finished 33-49 and missed the 10-team playoffs this season. It was a humiliating feat for LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony and a veteran support team widely expected to contend for another championship.
Vogel was under contract until next season, but almost nothing has happened over the past two seasons to rosters compiled by general manager Rob Pelinka and coached by Vogel, who has gone 127-98 in his three seasons managing the club.
Pelinka declined to give details on Monday of why he and owner Jenny Boss felt the need to fire Vogel.
“Today will not be a day to point fingers and get rid of all the specific causes,” Pelinka said. “We felt at the organizational level, at the highest level, that it was time for a new voice. … This does not mean anything against the incredible achievements of Frank Vogel. He was a great coach here, and he will continue to be a great coach elsewhere.”
ESPN reported Vogel’s impending release right after the Lakers finished the season with a victory over Denver in overtime Sunday night. During an awkward post-match press conference, Vogel admitted he had yet to be informed of the club’s decision before it was leaked to ESPN.
Pelinka dismissed the PR embarrassment of the leak for the Lakers, calling the report “speculative and unsourced.”
But it was a cliched ending to a period that began in a big way for Vogel, the former coach at Orlando and Indiana. The Lakers claimed a title in the Florida Bubble in October 2020, but have not won another playoff tour since then.
Pelinka does not plan to replace Vogel right away, and said he has not even compiled a list of potential candidates. The GM said it “would be great” to have a coach in place ahead of the June draft, but that the Lakers’ research would be “comprehensive and systematic.”
Los Angeles has never looked like a tag team this season despite trading with Westbrook and hiring Anthony to play alongside James and Davis. The Lakers faltered near 0.500 until January 7, when they entered a 10-30 relegation that was exacerbated by a recent prolonged injury to Davis, who has missed more games than he has in the past two seasons.
“The Lakers’ season has been disappointing on every level,” Pelinka said. “In the face of disappointment, our fans expect more, and that’s from every aspect. It starts with the front office I lead, and our ability to create the right roster. It starts with the coaches holding the players accountable and making sure that the death sentence is carried out in court.”
Despite another impressive season for the 37-year-old, the Lakers were unmatched this season with a roster of nine players over 30 and 11 players who were not with the squad last season. Davis managed to play in just 40 of his 82 games, while Westbrook struggled to fit into the concept of the Lakers during one of the worst seasons of his professional career.
After a lot of pre-season ballyhoo about the team of James, Davis and Westbrook, the trio were able to play in just 21 games together – and went 11-10. The Lakers used 41 different starting lineups.
“At the end of the day, the reason we weren’t good together is because we weren’t on the ground together,” James said after the Lakers finished with the worst win percentage in 19 NBA seasons (.402). “You’ve never had the chance to see what a football club could be.”
Although Vogel has remained publicly confident in his ability to fix the problems created by injuries and two years of compiling the high-stakes roster, the coach has never come up with any consistent solutions to L.A.’s problems.
But while Vogel has received plenty of criticism for his outlandish player rotation decisions and lack of an offensive game plan, the Lakers’ biggest problem in Vogel’s last two seasons has been Davis’ inability to stay healthy.
The eight-time All-Star big man has been the bubble-dominated, but Davis has played only 76 of the Lakers’ 154 games over the past two seasons while struggling with several major injury problems.
James has also struggled with injuries for the past two years, appearing in just 101 appearances. He played in only one of the Lakers’ last eight games this season due to a sprained ankle, and Los Angeles were eliminated from the playoffs during that time despite Davis returning from a six-week absence for three games late.
James spoke to the media Monday morning before the Lakers front desk revealed Vogel’s fate.
“I respect Frank as a coach, as a man,” James said. “Our partnership that we’ve had over the past few years here has been nothing but frank and wonderful conversations. This is the guy who gives everything to the game and prepares us every night….I don’t know what’s going to happen with Frank here, but I have nothing but respect for him” .
Vogel was set in May 2019 to assemble a tight-knit team around James and Davis, who was formally acquired from New Orleans two months later. Vogel’s plans worked right away: His first team survived the NBA shutdown due to the coronavirus and then won the ring, with Vogel leading a dominant defensive deep group to the title.
Pelinka has changed that tournament roster completely since then, and the results have been disastrous. Less than a full calendar year after winning in the bubble, James, Davis and Tallinn Horton-Tucker remain on the roster to start this season – along with Dwight Howard, who left the team and is back.
Los Angeles went 42-30 last season while suffering major injuries to Davis and James before losing to Phoenix in the first round of the playoffs. Pelinka then disbanded the title-winning Lakers when he allowed Alex Caruso to leave for Chicago and traded Kentavius Caldwell’s Bob and Kyle Kuzma in a package for Westbrook.
Pelinka had hoped to build a top three elite talent pool to be supplemented by low-cost veterans, rather than locally budding or long-running Lakers. Instead, Pelinka’s moves forced Vogel to rebuild his defense from scratch with inferior defensive players.
The Lakers didn’t come close to matching the last two teams’ defensive success, finishing 21st in the defensive rankings after being a top three team in Vogel’s first two seasons, and their offensive team couldn’t make up for that with Davis often unavailable.