Is Larry Bird Going To Let Frank Vogel Walk?
By Ben Gibson
The signs aren’t in favor of Frank Vogel returning to the Indiana Pacers.
After losing Game 7, the Indiana Pacers started planning for the future, which many expected would involve head coach Frank Vogel.
That may not be the case.
The Indy Star’s Gregg Doyle is reporting that Larry Bird hasn’t made a decision on Vogel’s future yet.
"Indiana Pacers president Larry Bird said Monday he hasn’t decided whether to bring back coach Frank Vogel for a seventh season, telling IndyStar: “It’s no secret – I want us to score more points.”What Bird has to decide, he says, is the best way to achieve more offense in a league headed in that direction: Change the roster, change the coach, or change both.“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Bird said.He doesn’t know when, either. Bird said he will make the decision after meeting by conference call with Pacers owner Herb Simon, but he said no call has been arranged.“He’s busy, so it could be a week or it could be tomorrow,” Bird said early Monday evening. “What I don’t want to do is leave Frank hanging – there’s other jobs out there he could get."
That doesn’t exactly sound like a vote of confidence. Bird also brought up again that the Pacers offense still struggles to score points, one of his biggest issues with Vogel.
When you pair that with Adrian Wojnarowski’s tweets that dropped right after the Pacers were eliminated, it doesn’t appear that Bird is overly interested in bringing Frank back and that Vogel may be looking to see where his next job might be.
Sources: Indiana coach Frank Vogel's contract expires at season's end and so far there's been no discussion of a contract extension.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 2, 2016
Vogel would have intense appeal on the market. He could be patient with choosing a new job -- if he doesn't return to Indiana.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 2, 2016
This is a very strange turn as just 24 hours ago, there wasn’t any real indication Vogel’s job was in danger, or even that his contract was set to expire.
2014-15 v. 2015-16 Indiana Pacers | PointAfter
Vogel has overachieved almost every season as the Pacers coach, winning more games than expected and in that regard has been one of the better coaches in the NBA. It seems strange that Bird would let Vogel walk considering the roster this season wasn’t a fully formed idea. It was stuck between the ideas of Bird’s smaller and faster ideas and Vogel’s big and defensive plans.
Of course, these words from Bird are “I don’t know…”, not ‘He’s gone.”
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But when it seems like it was an obvious choice to bring Vogel back, today’s comments cast doubt on the certainty of that idea.