Vogel: Vision for the Game and a Way With People

By Kevin Ding - Senior Writer

Gold championship banners hung from high above them. Frank Vogel and LeBron James were technically together in the Lakers’ practice gym last week—albeit with many, many others—as Vogel was being introduced on the floor as the new Lakers head coach. James stood, quietly pressed against a side wall to offer background support.

Completely separate from all that has been accomplished out West in this franchise’s history since relocating from Minneapolis, Vogel and James mostly know each other from their fierce competition at the highest levels in the East. It was after losing to James’ Miami Heat for second consecutive year in the Eastern Conference finals—and the third consecutive year overall—that Vogel as Indiana Pacers head coach lamented trying to overcome “the Michael Jordan of our era” in James.

That was back in 2014, after the home-court advantage Vogel’s team worked to earn as the East’s top seed was rendered moot by James’ team. Who could’ve known that the two men would join forces five years later, committed to building a team via James’ preferred weapon of the pass, in hopes of relaunching the Lakers’ championship threat?

Even though Vogel spent the 2005-06 season as a Lakers advance scout, he and James have basically both been longtime Lakers admirers from afar. They’re here now as two men who shared a manifest destiny desire to bring their families to live in Los Angeles, where Vogel had his wife and two daughters on vacation last year.

“We fell in love with the area,” Vogel said, smiling. “We left just thinking, ‘Man, that was like the best vacation ever. This is an amazing place to be.’ ”

Also as recently as last year, Vogel was referring to James as the “best player in the world.” And last week, among the very first words Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka spoke in welcoming Vogel to town was that same reminder.

I’m really, really excited for the chance to instill my beliefs Frank Vogel

“There’s just so much optimism thinking about where we are as a franchise right now,” Pelinka said. “We have the world’s best player on our team, we acquired the No. 4 pick in the June draft, we have the cap flexibility to continue to finish out this roster that we’ve been building over the last couple of years, and today we are announcing the hiring of our extraordinary new coach Frank Vogel.”

Vogel’s skills as a strategist are well known around the league. His ability to design an aircraft and then follow that flight path amid in-game turbulence stood as a major reason the Pacers took at least two games from James in each of those three series against him. Vogel is a career coach far more than he is a former player, and his start in this profession was him huddled away in the video room, pouring over X’s and O’s for Rick Pitino at the University of Kentucky and then with the Boston Celtics.

Vogel’s ability to build relationships, however, is also key to what will come for him as Lakers coach, and that aspect of him is not as well understood.

As a college kid with no credentials or justifications, Vogel had to sell himself and his passion to Jim O’Brien and Pitino at Kentucky, which got Vogel’s foot in the door to set the entire stage for this coaching career. Notre Dame football has Rudy as its consummate underdog tale, but Kentucky basketball’s equivalent is the wholly unlikely story of Vogel showing up, disarming and charming people, and then working endless hours to prove himself.

Pitino brought O’Brien and Vogel from Kentucky to the Celtics in 1997, and when O’Brien became the Pacers head coach in 2007, he brought Vogel with him—which led to Vogel getting to be interim head coach upon O’Brien’s 2011 departure. Vogel, at the time the youngest head coach in the NBA at 37, made more of that shot than anyone expected.

Vogel is a guy who has won the Rudy Tomjanovich Award from the Pro Basketball Writers Association for deep cooperation with media and fans in addition to professional coaching excellence. Highly regarded Celtics coach Brad Stevens leaned on Vogel as his adviser when Stevens was making the jump from college coaching to the NBA. Vogel’s such a good guy and earnest communicator that then-Pacers president Larry Bird acknowledged in 2016 that Vogel perhaps could’ve talked him into reconsidering the decision not to renew Vogel’s contract as Pacers coach.

Vogel’s positivity and desire to connect are coming clearly across from his beginning with the Lakers.

“I’ve got a strong plan for how we’re going to play as a basketball team,” Vogel said. As he spoke, Vogel placed his right hand over his heart, perhaps subconsciously conveying the depth of his truth.

“I’m really, really excited for the chance to instill my beliefs,” he said.