How Frank Vogel earned the respect of the Los Angeles Lakers:
Frank Vogel’s leadership throughout his time on the Lakers has been incredible. Last season, he successfully guided the Lakers to an NBA Championship amidst horrible tragedies with a tremendous level of grace and poise.
During the NBA Finals, LeBron James praised Vogel for his leadership in an article posted in the Orlando Sentinel:
"“He’s been great. He’s been unbelievable,” LeBron says of Vogel. “It’s been a crazy obstacle course for our franchise this whole year and he’s been able to manage it the whole time. He’s just always been the anchor. … Just happy to kind of be his coach on the floor and just command to my teammates the same message that he’s given to me and be an extension of his mind. It’s been great.”"
Notice there are hardly any complaints about Vogel coming from the players, nor is anyone leaking any rumors stating a player is unhappy. Oftentimes, the lack of noise surrounding a coach means he is doing his job well.
Vogel is a no-nonsense, no drama kind of coach who is clear in his communication and in his priorities. He ties playing time to a player’s effort and execution, not just by the results. He is unafraid to bench young players like Talen Horton-Tucker or veterans like Wesley Matthews Jr if they turn the ball over too much or make any off-ball defensive lapses.
Most importantly: Vogel used LeBron James and Anthony Davis correctly by defying conventional wisdom to make them unstoppable again.
Here is how.
Explaining Frank Vogel’s smartest coaching move:
Frank Vogel’s vision was to make the Lakers a supercharged iteration of his Indiana Pacers teams in the early 2010s. Vogel leveraged LeBron and AD’s tremendous size at the forward positions to dominate opponents in the paint.
This was not how most talking heads would have used LeBron and AD. The chatter was how they would play power forward and center, respectively, as the anchors for a hyper-switchable, position-less brand of basketball – without any regard for AD’s reluctance to play center or LeBron’s desire to play on the perimeter.
The prevailing thought was the Lakers could have been a more talented iteration of the Miami Heat when LeBron played power forward and Chris Bosh played center. The Heat were ultimately a team before their time, as the league has trended smaller and faster year after year.
But Vogel was correct to play a bigger lineup: no other team in the NBA could come close to matching the Lakers physicality and size with the LeBron/AD/Howard trio, whereas playing AD at the five would make the Lakers like any other NBA team.
In last season’s playoffs, Vogel allowed the other team’s coach to make the first coaching move in Game 1 and then he would wait to counter in Game 2. By the end of all the playoff series inside the bubble, the only move the opposing coach could make was to make his team grow six inches.