After a season of disappointment, Los Angeles Lakers head coach Frank Vogel has been fired with one more year remaining on his contract, a recent ESPN.com report said. Vogel’s termination Monday was likely not a big surprise to fans, as sources said it had been talked about for some time.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Frank, both on and off the court,” Rob Pelinka, Lakers vice president of basketball operations and general manager, said in a recent statement quoted by NBC Palm Springs. “Frank is a great coach and a good man. We will forever be grateful to him for his work in guiding us to the 2019-20 NBA championship. This is an incredibly difficult decision to make, but one we feel is necessary at this point. All of us here wish Frank and his wonderful family all the best for the future.”
The team under Vogel’s leadership failed to keep up the initial success it showed in the 2019-20 season that produced a 52-19 win-loss record, the NBC report said. Last year the Lakers finished at 42-30 and got bounced out of the playoffs in the first round. This season also proved dismal, with a 33-49 record that landed the Lakers in fourth place in the Pacific Division.
Pelinka wants to have a new coach ready to go before June’s NBA draft, but he wants the hiring process to be “thorough and methodical,” The ESPN release said. There is no list of potential candidates yet, and at this point none of Vogel’s coaching staff has been let go.
In shedding some light on why the Lakers went from a strong start to two disappointing seasons, the ESPN article noted that Vogel struggled this season to build continuity in the roster with both Lebron James and Anthony Davis suffering injuries. The Lakers stood alone as the only team not to have a single five-man lineup play 100 minutes together. Both offense and defense proved lacking as the Lakers finished in the bottom 10 of the league in each category.
