So here is Frank Vogel, sitting in limbo once again, wondering whether to fight for his job, beg for his job or tell Larry Bird to stick the Pacers’ job before walking off and finding another gig e...

So here is Frank Vogel, sitting in limbo once again, wondering whether to fight for his job, beg for his job or tell Larry Bird to stick the Pacers’ job before walking off and finding another gig elsewhere in the NBA.

Sound familiar?

A couple of months ago, we had a very similar situation here in Indianapolis, which is going to get the reputation as a tough town when it comes to head coaches. There was Chuck Pagano, one year removed from the AFC Championship Game berth, a few weeks removed from going 8-8 with everybody not named Chandler Harnish at quarterback, battling for his job and eventually retaining it after a Kumbaya hug-it-out session with Ryan Grigson and Jim Irsay.

Now, we’ve got another successful, popular coach in a similarly tenuous spot, his contract expiring, the boss — in this case, Bird — publicly saying he’s not quite sure what his next move might be. I always appreciate Bird’s transparency and to-a-fault honesty, but do you really want to tell the world you’re at a crossroads when it comes to keeping your coach? Doesn’t it make you look like, I don’t know, you’re confused? Shouldn’t you know your next move after observing a head coach for 5 and a half years?

This is what I do if I’m Frank Vogel, although I don’t think this is what Frank Vogel does: I walk. I tell Bird, “Thanks for the 5 and a half years, but you’ve never fully committed to me after all I’ve done for the organization and now I’m going to go someplace where I’m more fully appreciated.’’

Fight for the job? No way.

Beg for the job? Not a chance.

As for what Vogel will do, that’s a mystery. Since the season ended in Toronto, at which point he gave something that sounded a little bit like a stump speech on his own behalf, he has maintained an exceedingly low profile. Whatever he thinks, whatever he wants to say, he’s keeping that private for now, and I can certainly respect that.

Bird, on the other hand, has been more public, telling the Indianapolis Star Monday night that he’s on the fence about Vogel, that he wants to figure out what changes he needs to make to turn the Pacers into a more high-scoring team.

Can I offer a suggestion?

How about better players?

How about looking in the mirror and determining that the general manager has to do better than Monta Ellis and C.J. Miles and Lavoy Allen and Ty Lawson and, well, you get the idea?

After five and a half years, five playoff appearances, two Eastern Conference Finals appearances and a record that makes him the winningest coach in the Pacers’ NBA history, Vogel should not be reduced to begging. Or fighting. Or anything. This past year? He was given seven new players, lost his locker room leader in David West, was asked to install an entirely new system, and still took the No. 2 seed to seven games.

I understand the Pacers want to play more of an uptempo, high-scoring style, but it seems to me they lack the pieces to do that at this point in their development. I also understand that Vogel had absolutely no choice but to jettison the early-season small lineup in favor of a return of “smashmouth’’ basketball with Ian Mahinmi and Myles Turner. Vogel would like to play fast the way Bird wants to play fast, but he wants to win, and he put together his lineups in such a way that it gave them their best chance to win. Seriously, your two point guards are both two guards masquerading as points – George Hill and Ellis. This wasn’t going to happen overnight.

And yet, you always had the underlying sense that Bird and Vogel weren’t exactly on the same page. Shoot, it wasn’t even underlying. During an interview with Mark Monteith and Conrad Brunner earlier this season, the relentlessly honest Bird said, straight up, that he wasn’t on the same page with Vogel in terms of offensive philosophy.

What we didn’t know, though, is something we know now: Vogel, like Pagano, was a lame duck working in the final year of his contract. Vogel got a contract extension after the second Eastern Conference Finals run, but it wasn’t much of an extension. Most of us assumed it went through next season; we were wrong. Maybe that explains why the Pacers never announced the length of the extension, and when I asked Vogel about it a handful of times, he said he’d rather keep that private.

Well, sure he’d like to keep it private. It was embarrassing, unworthy of someone who led the Pacers out of the Jim O’Brien years and brought the franchise back to the playoffs for the first time since 2006.

It feels sometimes like Vogel has never quite stopped being an interim head coach in Bird’s eyes.

Odd.

I understand why Vogel would fight or beg to stay. This is one of just 30 NBA jobs. He’s got a wife and kids who have become comfortable here. When it comes to jobs, it’s not just about the head coach; it’s about the others who would be affected.

I would only say that Bird should be careful what he wishes for. Sometimes, Mark Jackson turns into Steve Kerr, and sometimes, Tom Thibodeau turns into Fred Hoiberg. Or Rick Carlisle gets canned, wins a title in Dallas and the Pacers turn to O’Brien.