One Year for Vogel? Would Bird Prefer Adelman?

The inimitable Sam Amick had this little nugget about the hypothetical terms of a potential Frank Vogel contract to coach Indiana within his leaguewide look at coaching vacancies for Sports Illustrated:

"In Indiana, the seat that is technically vacant is likely to be occupied by Frank Vogel next season as well. According to a source close to that process, the final decision has not been made but the odds are good that the interim coach is given a one-year deal."

Interesante.

And weird.

If you’re going to hire the guy, I would think you hire him. Ya know, give him three, or at least two, years as a vote of confidence — something that sends a message both to Vogel and his players. In the background, if there is actually trepidation, perhaps you do keep a short leash and can the guy after one year if the record doesn’t reflect management’s expectations. I know this franchise has greater financial pressures upon it than most, but it’s not as if Vogel will be getting serious money per season, so Herb Simon likely wouldn’t be losing a huge sum even if they signed Vogel to a three-year deal and then Bird fired him 12 months later. That would seemingly be one of the pros on the “hire Vogel” side of the ledger: he has very little head coaching experience and is likely very hungry to secure his first official job so the team has financial leverage in contract negotiations.

I would come as no surprise that the Pacers could use that leverage to get Vogel to sign a “show and prove” one-year deal, but the statement that management makes by inking him to a one-year deal would be rather curious and I wouldn’t know what to think about it. Amick is usually pretty spot on, but I guess we wait-and-see what happens before discussing it further.

In other news, Rick Adelman is a name popping up more and more often.

At Bird’s press conference this morning, he told Mike Wells that he would “probably” call the now-out-of-work former Rockets, Kings, Warriors and Blazers — and future Hall of Fame — coach who has a career 945-616 record (.605).

"Bird said he’ll probably make a call to Rick Adelman about the coaching position"

In some follow-up tweets, Wells seems skeptical that Adelman would have serious interest, both from the perspective that Adelman would like to go to — and is being coveted by — better teams and that a coach of Rick’s status may not even want to interview for a job when Vogel has already been described as a “front runner.”

Who knows what to make of all this? I’m purely speculating here, but perhaps Bird would like Adelman in an ideal world but believes that’s essentially his “reach school” and is therefore fine with seeing what Vogel can do with his own team after (hopefully) a training camp — but is only ready to commit half-heartedly with a one-year deal.

Or perhaps he loves Vogel but is just doing some due diligence by checking out the other options around before he hands Frank the keys?

We’ll find out eventually.