Frank Vogel immediately found a new after the Orlando Magic selected him to be their new head coach.
Vogel found himself among the avaialble coaches in the NBA after being cut by the Indiana Pacers. Pacers president Larry Bird decided to part ways with the veteran coach who was unable to implement the ‘small-ball’ offense that the NBA legend wanted to see.
The Orlando Magic have reached a deal in principle with Frank Vogel, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.
— Josh Robbins (@JoshuaBRobbins) May 19, 2016
Despite that firing, Vogel was a high-profile coach that teams were eyeing and the Magic beat everyone to the gun with the official hire. He takes over from Scott Skiles who resigned recently. Vogel is expected to enforce the same defensive genius he had in Indiana.
To his credit, Vogel holds a 250-181 regular-season record and a 31-30 postseason record during his tenure with the Pacers.
Now, the attention shifts on the players making up the Magic next season. Vogel is expected to apply the same genius he had with former Pacers players such as Roy Hibbert and Lance Stephenson. He will now be tasked to do the same with resident big men, Nikola Vucevic and Ersan Ilyasova.
But before all that, there is one rumor that may need to be answered beforehand and this concerns Dwight Howard. The 6-foot-11 center is currently with the Houston Rockets though he is expected to opt out to look for a more lucrative deal.
Howard is not expected to return to the Rockets and is currently weighing his options. A return to Orlando is one of them seeing he was never really to sustain the same brilliant level of play following stints with the Los Angeles Lakers and the Rockets.
With Vogel's work on big men, Howard could learn a thing or two from the veteran coach. And if that happens, it begs to ask if the Magic will still hold on to Vucevic and/or Ilyasova heading into next season.
