Adrian Wojnarowski broke the story just as the last buzzer in the team’s 33-49 season was heard. Vogel led the Lakers to the 2020 NBA Championship and will surely be a candidate again in the future coaching circles of the league. – Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 11, 2022 Oh, I feel like he can find out before that now, Woj! Especially if you consider that the report came out before his post-match interview. Vogel on reports that he was fired: “I was not told shit. I will enjoy tonight’s game … and we will deal tomorrow.” – Jacob Rude (@JacobRude) April 11, 2022 But even outside of the team’s disappointing season, it was written on the wall that the organization had not been fully committed to Vogel for some time. After rumors that either Vogel would not be extended for the last year of his contract or extended for more than a year, the team announced his extension in a news item on Friday night, the first sign that it was something they had. trying to sweep under the rug despite a decision to celebrate. A little later, the (expected) report that followed that the overtime was only for a year made Vogel (actually) a lame coach. The fact that they had previously hired an assistant coach that LeBron James’s love for David Fiddale – whose previous attacking philosophies for small balls fit this roster better than Vogel’s love of the tall ball – did little to stifle them. By mid-season, there were many leaks that Vogel was on the verge of canning at various points and that he would have already been thrown out if Jason Kidd was still on his bench. The team could not even wait until the end of the season to leak that its decision had already been made, so it is not surprising that the news came so quickly after its official end. So, in short, this was not exactly an unexpected end to the permanently awkward, arranged marriage between the Lakers and Vogel, which from start to finish never seemed to be the first choice of the team. Now, this does not mean that Vogel did much good for himself during a really miserable 2021-22 campaign. A complete overhaul of the team’s attacking system so that there was no follow-up to a roster that was already missing may have been a mistake in the aftermath, but it seemed to be Vogel’s early, dogmatic and often dazzling level of commitment in a big lineup with DeAndre Jordan as the starting point in hopes of regaining the regular season the team found with Anthony Davis / JaVale McGee in the 2019-20 campaign, although Davis had expressed a willingness to play mainly center this season season. Vogel, on the other hand, started Jordan for 16 of the Lakers’ first 23 games before playing him just 12 times in the rest of the year before Jordan was cut short in the middle of the season. The Lakers eventually committed to the small-ball only when Vogel was ill with COVID-19, but eventually returned to a good start at perhaps the worst possible moment: In the team’s last crucial game of the year, with Dwight Howard and Avery Bradley. starting with Russell Westbrook and duo LeBron James and Anthony Davis returning to a hatred starting group, and a team that only a coach with little interest in the level of shooting required to succeed in the 2022 NBA could love. As a result, the team was defeated by the Pelicans, sealing their fate. The game – with lethargy, lack of aggressive creativity and collapse in the fourth quarter – was basically a miniature of the Lakers 2021-22. Now, perhaps some of the choices Vogel consistently endorsed by his foremost critics were the front office decree, but it certainly should not have been Jordan’s revived relics stumbling out there if the desire was to become great by early, and the team did not have to prioritize the shot in its lineup as little as often. They did not have to be so allergic to change, or lead the drivers to rim protection that did not exist in small rows. They did not have to play Avery Bradley that much. This team – and, as it turns out, Vogel in particular – never had enough room for error to make up for all its complex assets, mistakes that destroyed the team’s spirit and self-belief to the point where they basically gave up. All-Star Break is no longer dedicated to playing steadily hard and focused basketball for a coach they clearly considered more than just a substitute teacher for his final replacement, a replacement most of them will not see as a result of their own actions. Now, to be as fair as possible with Vogel, the injuries to the team’s wings to start the training camp made it more difficult for the team to fully and effectively embrace the identity of the little ball for which they were designed, and Rob Pelinka and Kurt Rambis build this team Having only Talen Horton-Tucker and 36-year-old Trevor Ariza as winger options beyond LeBron is also worth considering here. However, Vogel did not necessarily help himself to make a good start, even though there is a deeper context for why he went in the direction he did, a direction that led him to take a meal at Chik-Fil-A this the moment. . There will be (and there have already been throughout the year) cries from the national media, and perhaps some local ones, that this is unfair. That Vogel had a crude deal. That he did not build this team and certainly did not lead the trade class for Russell Westbrook. And maybe the front desk that gave him a roster as unfit as possible to play the style he had chosen led him to failure. On a human level, he certainly was not very careful. But, if nothing else, it is easier to argue that the team should have let him go earlier. It was not the job of the Lakers’ heavyweight team to build around their coach. Vogel’s tastes were never to be found at the top of the totem pole. The NBA just doesn’t work that way. LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Rob Pelinka all wanted Westbrook and a team full of certified buckets. Right or wrong, it was Vogel’s job to optimize this grouping. He did not do it, and now he is gone. Make no mistake: Vogel is a good coach and his frantic defensive style should always thank the Lakers fans for the team’s dominance towards the 2020 title. But as the team leaned more towards a small ball approach, focused in the attack to save the wear on its stars as they grow older, Vogel’s inability to find schematically or rotationally a way to coach the team he had instead of the team he wanted. it was ultimately a big part of his cancellation, even though roster decisions that were not in his hands played a role in these failures. And, at some point, it was clear that the front office just wanted to do that. Better to remove the bandage than drag the mess if they have already made their decision. Even if they could wait until Monday – or at least until after Vogel’s pressure match – every coaching decision he’s made, from Ty Lue’s lowballing to forcing Jason Kidd on Vogel’s staff and even just giving Vogel a three-year contract before they hesitantly spend a year on it, showed how interchangeable they feel the coaching is. So, even if Vogel was not the only problem, his dismissal and the acquisition of a new voice is clearly the next step, as the team is trying to move on from a year that everyone will want to forget. With Vogel’s departure, it is unknown exactly where the team will go from here and who will take over, but Quin Snyder, Doc Rivers and other celebrities are expected to be candidates. And as the hours, days and weeks go by, more will certainly come out about the rationale for this decision, but it has always been inevitable that Vogel would be a scapegoat if this season did not work out. Front cabinets, no matter how defective, should not be fired or repositioned. All that remains to be seen is whether this change of coach can really fix something or whether much of the same institutional rot that led to this ever uncomfortable season will condemn the next Lakers coach. This development story will be updated with more information. 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