Godspeed to former Pacers coach Frank Vogel. You’re gonna need it

With Frank Vogel being hired as the Los Angeles Lakers head coach, one wonders if he can overcome the dysfunction of the organization and return to being as good as he was with the Indiana Pacers.

Godspeed, Frank Vogel, and a belated congratulations on being hired by the Los Angeles Lakers as their new head coach. Hated to see things not work out with the Orlando Magic, but hopefully, you remind people just how good of a coach he was with the Indiana Pacers.

But with all the love and respect in the world, I’m not betting on Vogel’s success.

Yes, you have LeBron James, noted dream crusher of the Indiana Pacers. But outside of that and a young and talented core of players the team might trade for Anthony Davis, all you’ve got after that is an organization that hasn’t had the same prestige it had when the late Jerry Buss was the boss and Jerry West was making basketball decisions.

But West and others remind us of a pattern that often goes overlooked: Good coaches, players, front office personnel, everyone in an organization suffers when there’s dysfunction.

When things were going right for the Pacers in 2012, 2013, and right up to the beginning of the Struggle, the dynamics of Indiana seemed perfect. Larry Bird got the right players to work with Vogel, the players bought in, and all was right with the world.

But we saw how quickly that can change, too. While the Pacers didn’t have a true crisis within the organization, cracks formed and got worse.

When Bird signed Andrew Bynum, that didn’t sit well with Roy Hibbert. The trade of Danny Granger made sense on paper but seemed to fracture trust even more. You can call Hibbert ‘soft’ if you’d like, but it’s on the front office to gauge how a move like that would affect things.

While that’s mostly on Bird, it’s a reminder how one part of the equation can affect the others. Bird’s ‘old school’ mentality just wasn’t working and it seemed not long after, he was ready to check out.

Thanks to the organization not being a trainwreck management-wise, the Pacers moved on, promoted Kevin Pritchard, hired McMillan, made some moves, and are one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference. It also helps Bird wasn’t so much a problem as he just made mistakes toward the end.

For better or worse, Herb Simon is hands-off with the Pacers. Maybe he could be more willing to spend, but he also isn’t asking Pritchard to do things no one on the basketball side of things thinks is a good idea.

But when you have a situation like the Orlando Magic did with Vogel — simply not being the best ran franchise while not having the prestige to insulate itself from mistakes — it’s easy for a good player or coach to suddenly not look so good.

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Since Jeanie Buss took over the team in 2013, the Lakers haven’t had the best track record. Period. They were coming off a historical high point, but they’ve hit a historical low point in recent years. Depending on how you look at it, some of that is on ownership.

And the problem is now for Vogel is he is headed into a similar situation to what ran off West. The legend from West Virginia then proceeded to make the Grizzlies relevant, helped turn the Golden State Warriors into a juggernaut, and then made the Los Angles Clippers at least appear to be the better ran basketball team in Los Angeles.

Vogel is heading into a similar situation that made Mike D’Antoni a sub-.500 coach (he didn’t do as well with the James Dolan owned New York Knicks, either) before moving on to the Houston Rockets where they’ve been the only real threat to the Warriors the past two seasons.

Frank is headed into a situation where the Rambis family possibly has more power than anyone on the basketball side of things. If the Rambis clan (is Rambi the plural?) had more success in previous stops, that wouldn’t be so concerning for Frank’s future.

The Lakers are, of course, still the Lakers. If they land Davis in a trade, sign some good free agents to round out the roster, then maybe none of this matters. Maybe they fail their way to a title because LeBron James made up for a lot of ownership’s issues in Cleveland, too. It won’t take much to make the Lakers The Lakers again, even if some of the people at the top aren’t making the best basketball decisions.

But I tend to worry a little but for one of the best former coaches in Pacers’ history. While there’s plenty of advantages for him coaching the Lakers compared to almost any other team, the people calling the shots at the moment have a history of underachieving with the advantages in their favor.

Godspeed, Frank Vogel.