Los Angeles Lakers: Grading the Frank Vogel, Jason Kidd hirings

The Los Angeles Lakers have finally found their head coach in Frank Vogel. What does his signing, and the addition of Jason Kidd to his staff, mean going forward?

It took about a month, but Los Angeles Lakers fans finally get to see who’ll be running plays for their Lakers next season. The Lakers hired Frank Vogel as their new head coach, to be assisted by Jason Kidd.

It was interesting that the Lakers front office felt so strongly about bringing in Kidd as an assistant, but not surprising that Vogel willingly allowed for Kidd to be brought in under him.

Despite having an exciting past with the Indiana Pacers back in the Paul George, David West, and Roy Hibbert days, Vogel hasn’t really had a tremendous amount of success as a head coach in the NBA of recent.

He did coach an underwhelming Orlando Magic roster for two seasons, but in his first year apart from the team, they made the playoffs for their first time in seven years, which isn’t the greatest look for Vogel. His all-time coaching record is 304-291, hovering just around .500.

It’s rather concerning that the Lakers parted ways with Luke Walton to replace him with a coach like Frank Vogel, being that Walton hasn’t really been less successful than Vogel. An argument could be made that Walton has even been more successful. But when you have a player of LeBron James‘ caliber and dramatics, it’s only fitting that Walton would lose his job in his first year coaching James.

That being said, Vogel has a chance to fit nicely with LeBron. Quite frankly, all Vogel really needs to do is step back and let LeBron run things, assuming that’s what the Lakers’ upper management brought him in for, which is probably the only sensible argument to bring him in.

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The Jason Kidd assistant coach signing is the more intriguing hire of the two, however. Kidd had a remarkable career in the NBA and is reported to have very good player relationships, which if true, would be smart of Lakers’ upper management to have made this move.

Having Vogel as the experienced and also reported likable head coach by players throughout the league, and a true players coach in Jason Kidd makes this dual hiring a nice one. Despite all the disarray within the Lakers organization of late, their goals remain consistent in hoping to sign superstar free agents.

Now, Kawhi Leonard probably won’t sign with the Lakers, and may even stay in Toronto after what everyone just witnessed in the Raptors-Sixers Game 7. Kevin Durant likely won’t entertain the idea of signing with the storied Lakers franchise, and an Anthony Davis trade looks unlikely.

However, there’s plenty of star players to go around this offseason, like Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, Jimmy Butler, and even Klay Thompson. The most intriguing of those four is Irving.

Just after the Lakers hired the Vogel-Kidd duo to coach the Lakers next season, reports came out about Kyrie Irving’s apparent interest in linking back up with LeBron James in Lakerland.

This wouldn’t come as too big of a surprise, with things looking more and more obvious that both LeBron and Kyrie need one another to truly succeed. Further reports indicated that Ty Lue and Irving have a bumpy history, so hiring Vogel and Kidd (former superstar point guard), might have been the best possible move for the Lakers to make in trying to lure All-Star guards like Irving, Walker, Butler, or Thompson.

Giving the Lakers’ front office an A+ hiring grade would have meant somehow securing an all-time coach and/or President of Operations. Unfortunately, that was unlikely due to the fact that all the top prospective coaches and Presidents of Operations are off the market, and for good reason.

I think keeping Luke Walton wouldn’t have hurt but rather would have at the very least given the Lakers roster more experience under one coach, as opposed to having to adjust to a new one. All that being said, bringing in a likable coach, and a player’s assistant coach is encouraging for Lakers fans. Being that the team’s top priority is signing premier free agents, which begins with good rapport from your office staff and NBA players.

Ultimately, I am issuing an overall grade of a “B.” Keeping Walton would have been more beneficial than hiring a brand new coach without an impressive resume that players would now have to re-adjust to. Hiring Jason Kidd, with the understanding that he’s a great players Coach, is what ultimately brought this grade up to the “B.”

Moving forward, the storied franchise has a lot of work to do in order to balance out the current chaos, with optimism. The top priority for the Lakers from here on out will be signing a promising prospect from the NBA draft, then looking into trading and/or signing superstar talent to their roster.