Los Angeles Lakers head coach Frank Vogel quickly proved himself as he led the team to a 49-14 record during the 2019-20 NBA season before it was put on hiatus.
Vogel built his reputation on his ability to craft strong defensive units and communicate effectively with his players, and it showed with how well the Lakers were playing.
LeBron James and Anthony Davis bought in early and the rest of the roster followed suit.
With all the downtime, Vogel admitted he has been able to go on a deep dive studying his team, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“Well, there’s endless volumes of video that you can continue to study and I’ve taken advantage of that. I took a little stretch when it first hit to have some time to decompress. We’re in for a potentially long road here. We didn’t get the All-Star break cause we were coaching the game, so I took some time to myself to be with my family. But the last week or so, I’ve been knocking out some film projects. I watched a lot of our games just to study where we were at with our offensive package, our defensive system, the ways we were growing… taking notes, making sure we’re prepared to pick up where we left off.”
Vogel also mentioned how he has been able to do more video work to prepare for the 2020 NBA playoffs:
“And obviously, there’s…if you go on the NBA app on Apple TV, you can watch every single one of the games that all of our potential playoff opponents have played. So, there’s a great opportunity to just sit on the couch and log on to some games and just watch them in flow. We coaches, we watch a lot of edits that are sorted by defensive coverages or the offensive playbook and etc. and it’s nice to be able to watch games and get a feel for that opponent.”
While not ideal, the order to stay home has given Vogel a rare opportunity to truly assess the Lakers midseason and with only a quarter of the regular season remaining, there is plenty of tape to pour over. Getting a headstart on playoff opponents also does not hurt as there is enough film to begin formulating game plans.
There are still no clear plans to resume the season as the coronavirus situation continues to develop, so Vogel will probably be watching film until further notice.