Frank Vogle Not Re-signed by Indy

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/frank-vogel-is-out--and-the-indiana-pacers-are-gone-till-november-154957150.html



Frank Vogel is out, and the Indiana Pacers are gone till November


Kelly Dwyer,Ball Don't Lie


1 hour 31 minutes ago



What came out of nowhere earlier in the week, by Thursday morning, had become expected by the time Indiana Pacers president Larry Bird approached the podium in Indianapolis.

Pacers coach Frank Vogel, the team’s head coach since the 2010-11 season, is out. The move technically is not a firing, as Bird was quick to let the assembled media know:

Indiana Pacers ✔ ‎@Pacers
Larry Bird: "Frank’s not getting fired, his contract is up and I just made the decision not to renew it."
8:01 AM - 5 May 2016
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Vogel led the Pacers to a 45-37 record in 2016, a playoff berth after a (mostly Paul George-less) season spent missing the postseason the year before, and he assembled a 250-181 record in his time with the Pacers. The Indiana gig was his first shot as an NBA head coach after eight years spent as an assistant. Vogel’s first NBA job saw him act as video coordinator for the Boston Celtics under former fellow Kentucky Wildcat Rick Pitino.

“It’s really a tough thing,” Bird lamented, but he insisted that the team was ready for “a new voice,” before re-stating his long-held opinion that head coaches should really only stay on the job for three seasons.



Paul George. (Getty Images)


The Pacers president says he started considering a coaching move around the All-Star break. Indiana entered that time off with a 28-25 record, but rallied for a 17-8 finish and postseason security. The team even took Game 1 of its first round series with the No. 2 ranked Toronto Raptors, stealing the home court advantage along the way. Though Indiana’s offense actually improved in its playoff run, the team still fell in seven games.

It was that stagnant offense that did Vogel and his team in.

The Pacers entered the playoff bracket with the worst offense by far amongst the 16 postseason teams, ranked No. 25 in points per possession. Bird had hoped to see a faster, smaller Pacer team take shape in 2015-16 following the return of a healthy George and the deal that sent center Roy Hibbert to the Lakers, but George chafed at playing power forward, rookie Myles Turner needed until the season’s mid-point to recover from a hand injury, and the team’s offensive efficiency actually dropped this season. The pace did increase, but the production did not in spite of George’s All-Star return.

Though Bird hired Vogel as full time coach following his impressive work in saving Indiana’s 2010-11 season, Vogel’s initial introduction to the team came in the former of ex-Pacer head coach Jim O’Brien. Vogel worked under O’Brien as an assistant coach in Boston and Philadelphia, and though Bird hired Obie back in 2007, Vogel’s inclusion was part of the package, and not something the Pacer front office sought out.

On Thursday, Bird ruled out hiring former Rockets and Timberwolves head coach Kevin McHale, saying he had “too much respect” for his former Celtic teammate to ask him to work under the Indiana president. Pacer assistant and former Seattle and Portland head coach Nate McMillan would seem a candidate, as he presided over some stellar (if slowed-down) offensive teams during his time in Seattle.

Bird, clearly, isn’t blinking in moving on:

Rachel Nichols ✔ ‎@Rachel__Nichols
Larry Bird says he and Frank Vogel spoke for about a half hour on the phone this morning, and that Vogel kept asking him to reconsider.
8:10 AM - 5 May 2016
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How the Pacers can adapt can only be changed by so much coaching. You’re either a three-point shooter or you’re not, and the Pacers ranked around the middle of the pack in three-point percentage this season. That could change as Paul George grows stronger in the wake of his devastating 2014 leg injury and Myles Turner grows more and more confident from behind the line, but internal development only takes a team so far.

There will be room to tinker with the rotation, even if this summer’s free agent pickings will be slim.

Even with George and guard Monta Ellis making $29 million this season, the Pacers will be amongst the many NBA teams with significant cap room. Free agent to-be Chase Budinger is off the team and fellow likely escapee Jordan Hill was out of the rotation, and while C.J. Miles, Lavoy Allen and Rodney Stuckey turned in typically-inconsistent years, they’re hardly a cap millstone in making a combined $15.5 million next season.

The trick here is figuring out where the fault lies.

Larry Bird will have this job for however long he wants it for, and Vogel was paid a relative NBA head coaching pittance last year at $2.5 million, but players tuning a coach out after three years probably wasn’t to blame for long shots not hitting their mark, an inability to circle the wagons while Paul George sat, and Indiana’s seasons-long inability to play from ahead.

That final one might, in the end, be the fault of Frank Vogel. The Pacers never seemed to execute once the expectations hit, and it’s three-month collapse to finish 2013-14 (a 10-13 end to the regular season after a 46-13 start followed by uninspiring playoff showings against Atlanta, Washington and Miami) was one of the swifter falls from grace that the NBA has seen of late.

These are Bird’s players now, though. Never more so than now, in fact, as he gets to pick his own guy to run things while working out of a front office that has far fewer cooks than the one that was in place when Jim O’Brien (and Vogel) came on board in 2007.



bob



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Kevin McHale could be the next Indianapolis head coach.

wideclyde wrote:Kevin McHale could be the next Indianapolis head coach.

Not likely in the article it says Bird has too much respect to hire him

beat