What the Hell Was Larry Bird Talking About?

Seriously, what the hell was Larry Bird talking about?

The further we get away from the news conference in which Larry Bird let everyone know Frank Vogel wasn’t returning to the Indiana Pacers, the more questions arise about the entire situation.

Vogel wasn’t perfect, and there were reasons to let him go, but it felt like everything Bird talked about last week was only connected to the situation by the barest of threads.

Let’s look at some of the quotes from Bird last week, starting with the magical three-year rule Bird cited.

"“Just the history. I’ve been around the history of the game for a lot of years. My experience has been, good coaches leave after three years. I played for Bill Fitch and I’ve seen it happen firsthand. I’ve talked to Red Auerbach on the subject a lot. We had K.C. Jones for five years. Nicest man I ever met. And they let him go. And we were having success.”"

Funny that he mentions Auerbach, who coached the Boston Celtics for 16 years. Sure, Bill Fitch usually coached no more than four years in any of his stops in the NBA and a similar thing could be said for K.C. Jones. But back then the Celtics were in a smaller pond and likely had little trouble attracting talent to their organization.

It is also worth pointing out that Gregg Popovich has been in San Antonio since 1996 — 20 seasons — and both Rick Carlisle and Erik Spoelstra have been at their respective jobs for 8 seasons. I think of another sport, football, and the Pittsburgh Steelers when it comes to seeing the value of stability. They allowed Bill Cowher to have multiple seasons where they struggled, giving him slack knowing what he had done in the past.

Obviously, there was a limit, but they didn’t panic or cite an arbitrary three-year rule. They allowed him to do his job without fearing for it with every loss. They are currently doing something similar with Mike Tomlin. Unless they — or in this case, Vogel — loses the locker room, it seems worth the wait when a few things go wrong. Bird even admitted that Vogel never lost his players

Frank Vogel | PointAfter

Now they have to find a coach who looks at the roster and thinks they can build a title team in four years or less. You aren’t helping your own cause when you send a message to coaches that they have a very short window, no matter how the team is built.

Speaking on how the team is built, isn’t that Larry’s responsibility? You want more points, don’t you?

"“It’s no secret — I want us to score more points,” Bird told the IndyStar’s Gregg Doyel after the Pacers lost 89-84 to the Raptors in Game 7. “If you’d told me we’d score 84 points … You can’t go very far in the playoffs if you don’t score,” Bird continued. “When I tell people this, it’s not because I think I know it all — it’s because I experienced it as a player.”"

So you want more points, so that’s why you began the season with Ian Mahinmi as a starter. A guy who didn’t even look capable of being a starter because of his awkwardness with the ball in his hands. He exceeded expectations and was a quality center, but that was a surprise.

Even if we ignore the front court, the guards you had to score with were Monta Ellis (a ball dominant players) and George Hill (a defensive guard who has shown he plays his best offense when he’s allowed to be ball dominant) as well as C.J. Miles, Rodney Stuckey, and Solomon Hill filling in the gaps between.

More from 8 Points, 9 Seconds

Miles and Stuckey are streaky, which is expected, but Solomon Hill didn’t look like he could shoot the ball at all until recently. It wasn’t exactly like you gave Vogel an offensive arsenal to work with. The offense is a weakness in Vogel’s game, but considering he turned a roster that everyone other than Bird thought was destined to miss the playoffs into a team that pushed the No. 2 seeded Toronto Raptors to the brink, that’s impressive in its own right.

Moreover, these are the Pacers scoring totals, in terms of points per game, during Vogel’s past four years as head coach:

2012-13: 94.7
2013-14: 96.7
2014-15: 97.3
2015-16: 102.2

Though the team’s offensive efficiency (points per possession) remained largely the same as the previous season, Vogel did score more points this year. He got the Pacers playing faster to the point that they put up nearly 5 points per game more. That is not a trivial jump.

This was suppose to be a transition season for Indiana, but they exceeded expectations. The offense didn’t get better, per se, but it did get faster and scored more per game.

And Vogel did that at the same time that, even without having the right personnel to be a defensive team, he oversaw the third-best defense in the NBA. He got a flawed roster to put up more points and maintain defensive excellence.

In addition to his request for more points, Bird mentioned a lack of motivation.

"“It’s all about motivating the players and getting them to play at a higher level. If you’ve got their ear, then it works. This goes back a long time ago. I’ve seen it. After a certain number of years, it’s time to make a move and that’s how I feel. I know it’s not going to a 100 percent popular move, but all I think about is the franchise. What’s best for the franchise, and I think this is.”"

Uh, was turning Roy Hibbert and Lance Stephenson into All-Star and near-All-Star-level players not getting them to a higher level? Just reread the previous paragraph if you need an answer on whether Vogel was getting the most out of his players. If that isn’t enough consider this was the best defensive season of Monta’s career.

Are you just mad cause he’s a happier human being than you, Larry?

"“I’m sort of going to Frank’s side because he’s had so much success by staying positive. We do have to stay the course,” Bird said. “But I also think he’s got to start going after guys when they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do. And stay on them, whether you’ve got to take them out of the game when they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do, or limit their minutes. I will say, he hasn’t done that enough.”"

While it can’t be proven, either way, it seems convenient that this is being brought up an issue now. On top of that, the bench has been awful, so who exactly was going to replace the starters if they weren’t doing what they were supposed to do.

Additionally, when Myles Turner struggled in the second half of the season, Vogel benched him for Lavoy Allen. Afterwards, the team went on a run of success to secure the seventh seed in the playoffs. Then, after Allen played poorly in the opening games in the postseason against the Raptors, the coach benched Allen to re-insert Turner into the starting lineup.

Are these the “you’ve got to take them out of the game when they’re not doing what they’re supposed to” issues you were talking about?

Perhaps this is a multi-year issue he had with Vogel and this one Turner example isn’t enough to prove Vogel was willing to do otherwise. But shouldn’t you have been addressing this with Vogel during the season, not now?

Again, we don’t know what conversations the two did or didn’t have during the season, but we have a very recent example of Vogel’s willingness to do exactly what Bird suggested he should have been winning to do.

Then there is the ultimate kicker from Bird — specifically regarding one of their conversations.

We do know of at least one talk the two had after the season since you decided that the proper Hoosier thing to do was to let everyone know Vogel begged to keep his job after you practically announced days before that he wasn’t coming back.

"“We talked for probably a half hour on the phone. He was trying to talk me out of this decision. Frank loves it here, his family loves it and he kept bringing it up about can we sit down and delay the news conference and start all over again. He’s going to be missed. He’s a good guy, he’s good for our community.”"

This comment felt like a hatchet job to try to embarrass Vogel by letting people know that this had happened. It certainly didn’t feel like the right way to treat a coach that had brought the Pacers back from being irrelevant in the post-Brawl days.

All of Bird’s comments never really added up to much. At best it seems he saw Vogel as soft in some way and had reached the end of his effectiveness. While he hinted at the idea, he never really backed it up with facts. While Vogel might have been getting tuned out, it is hard to know how true that is as it had never even a widely reported rumor until after Vogel was let go.