Don’t fret, Frank.
Don’t hang your head.
It’s not your fault.
If Wednesday night, in fact, marked your last game as coach of the Orlando Magic, you did the best you could with what you had.
Or with what you didn’t have:
Players.
Good players.
Does Frank Vogel deserve to be fired?
Definitely not.
Will Frank Vogel be fired?
Probably so.
The Magic beat the Washington Wizards 101-92 Wednesday in a meaningless final game to end yet another miserable season. Sadly, Vogel will likely be the latest coach to suffer collateral damage from the fallout of the rebuild … and the rebuild of the rebuild … and the rebuild of the rebuilt rebuild. It’s looking more and more like Vogel is yet another good coach and good man who will be victimized by the Magic’s perpetually bad roster.
Magic CEO Alex Martins reiterated again after the game Wednesday night that no decision has been made on Vogel’s future and said all evaluations will start on Thursday. However, there have been rumors and rumblings for weeks Vogel could get jettisoned and perhaps replaced by former NBA star Jerry Stackhouse, a hot coaching candidate who led Toronto’s G-League team to a championship last year. Stackhouse has ties with Jeff Weltman, Toronto’s ex-general manager who is in his first season as the Magic’s new president of basketball operations.
Pardon the pessimism, but the only way Stackhouse could make this team noticeably better next season is if he were still in his playing prime. The Magic need new players, not a new coach. Do you realize next season will be Year 7 of the rebuild with the Magic worse off now than they were when it began?
The disastrous process started with the firing of Stan Van Gundy — the most successful coach in team history — and the hiring of 30-year-old GM Rob Hennigan, who had never before been a GM. Then Hennigan hired Jacque Vaughn, who had never before been a head coach, and that’s when buffoonery began.
Bad draft picks, bad trades and bad luck has created a perfect storm of ineptitude. Scott Skiles was hired after Vaughn and lasted a year before he’d seen enough and did something NBA coaches almost never do. He quit and left millions of dollars on the table. He hasn’t been heard from since.
Vogel, of course, isn’t quite so temperamental. If and when he gets fired, he’ll walk away with a few million dollars for the one year remaining on his contract. While it’s hard to feel sorry for anybody who gets paid millions not to work, you still have to feel for any employee who gets fired for the mistakes of others.
Weltman took over for Hennigan after last season and has the unenviable task of cleaning up the smoldering tire fire. He inherited Vogel, and it’s certainly no secret that new management almost always wants to bring in its own coach. Probably the only thing that saved Vogel from being fired when Weltman got the job is that Magic ownership — for all of the management missteps it has made in the past — treats its employees well. Firing Vogel after only one season would have been callous and cut-throat.
Getting fired after two seasons seems much more palatable in today’s impatient sports world. If, in fact, Vogel does get fired; the Magic will start next year with their third head coach in the last four seasons. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the basketball version of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The only thing missing is the violinist playing, “Nearer, My God, To Thee.”
Bringing in another coach isn’t going to matter. Good players make good coaches. Bad players make bad coaches.
Vogel was a really good coach in Indiana when he had a good supporting cast to go with superstar Paul George. He made the playoffs in five of his six seasons, including two trips to the conference finals. Now, suddenly, we’re supposed to believe he’s a bad coach because he finished 25-57 with a weak and injury-ravaged roster?
Did Doc Rivers transform from bad coach to great coach after he was fired by the Magic in 2003 and won a championship with the Big Three in Boston four seasons later? Of course not. He just went to a team that acquired multiple superstars. And speaking of Doc, he was a perennial playoff coach with the Clippers when he had Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. Now that Paul and Griffin are gone, Doc’s barely a .500 coach who may be on the way out.
Van Gundy was a great coach when he had Dwight Howard in his prime in Orlando; now he’s on the hot seat in Detroit because his Pistons are out of the playoffs again for the third time in four years.
Rivers was once fired by the Magic.
Van Gundy was once fired by the Magic.
Vogel will likely be next.
It’s not your fault, Frank.
Listen, and you can hear a soft song playing in the distance.
“Yet in my dreams I’d be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee.”
Email me at [email protected]. Hit me up on Twitter @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. on FM 96.9 and AM 740.