After one of the strangest NBA head coaching searches in recent memory, the Los Angeles Lakers ended up with former Indiana Pacers head coach Frank Vogel to replace former head coach Luke Walton.
The Lakers front office was criticized for the way they handled the search after a botched attempt at landing former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue led them to Vogel.
Despite that, Vogel has been off to a great start with the Lakers, seemingly gaining the trust of the players and front office. Any time Vogel has spoken about the direction of the team, he provided hope to Lakers fans who haven’t felt a stable presence in this organization in nearly seven seasons.
Vogel has also been nothing but positive about the front office that hired him, even though the way they hired him isn’t so comforting. He says that he has a ‘great relationship’ with the current brass, according to Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated:
“I really do,” Vogel said. “I’ve established a great relationship so far with Rob Pelinka, Kurt Rambis, Jeanie Buss, the entire front office. I think we’ve really hit the ground running. Obviously this is a performance industry that we’re in, especially in terms of coaching, but I feel like they’ve settled on the right guy. I feel like they’re happy with their choice for coach and the relationship in terms of us being aligned and working together to build this team up to this point, it couldn’t be stronger. I anticipate that that will be the case going into the season.”
This type of good relationship can help to further stabilize a front office that has a tendency to be very erratic. However, it seems like those types of decisions ended when Vogel came through the door.
Since Vogel’s arrival, the Lakers are yet to make an obviously bad move. They traded for Anthony Davis, played out free agency perfectly in the pursuit of Kawhi Leonard, and made quality signings when he eventually signed with the Los Angeles Clippers.
In that time, the Lakers went from a team that missed the playoffs to a championship contender, something that not a lot of teams are able to do in just one summer.
If the first couple months of the Pelinka-Vogel era have shown anything, it’s that stability might be returning to the Lakers and that’s a far bigger development than any trade or free agent signing.