The Los Angeles Lakers have made it official that the team has parted ways with head coach Frank Vogel following the end of his third season with the team.
Last night, following an overtime win over the Denver Nuggets, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN immediately tweeted about the team’s decision to fire Vogel. This was uncharacteristic and unfortunate, to say the least, considering Vogel had yet to get to the podium for his postgame presser, making things incredibly awkward once he arrived.
Although Vogel refused to address the reports claiming that he had no heard from the team but did hear about the tweet from Wojnarowski, he was happy about what turned out to be one of the better games of the season with Austin Reaves and Malik Monk putting on a show.
Unfortunately for Vogel, celebrating the performances of two players he helped elevate this season will be short-lived. He will be unemployed once again after three years in Los Angeles.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Frank both on and off the court,” said Rob Pelinka, the Lakers Vice President of Basketball Operations and General Manager. “Frank is a great coach and a good man. We will forever be grateful to him for his work in guiding us to the 2019-20 NBA championship. This is an incredibly difficult decision to make, but one we feel is necessary at this point. All of us here wish Frank and his wonderful family all the best for the future.”
Despite how disappointing the 2021-22 NBA season turned out to be for the Lakers, Vogel’s time with the Purple and Gold will mostly be remembered for the title he coached the team to in his first season. It was a confusing and challenging season marred by the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in a strange bubble scenario in Orlando, Florida, but Vogel and the Lakers endured and were able to hang a 17th championship banner in the rather at what is now called Crypto.com Arena.
In three seasons with the Lakers, Vogel finished with a record of 127-98 in the regular season and 18-9 in the playoffs, with one NBA title to his credit.
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