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Getting to Know Frank Vogel

MT: When did you first fall in love with basketball?
Vogel: I played since I was very little, ever since I can remember. I think I really fell in love with it the first time I went to a summer overnight camp the summer of my seventh-grade year: Boo’s Basketball Camp, by Alan “Boo” Pergament, who used to run weekly free basketball clinics every Wednesday night for all South Jersey kids that wanted to come. He had a summer basketball camp geared not only towards skill development, but helping kids fall in love with the game. The process, the work that goes into it and how you can achieve anything if you put your mind into it. That’s probably where I actually fell in love with the game and knew it was going to be my best sport.

MT: Did you zero in early on a basketball obsession, or did you have a lot of things going on?
Vogel: I played a lot of sports growing up. I played soccer … baseball was probably my favorite sport up until about that time. I played tennis my senior year of high school, but that was more for fun. Around the neighborhood it was street hockey, whiffle ball or football. I just enjoyed sports in general.

MT: Do you believe in the concept that sports is a metaphor for life, a great place to learn about ourselves…
Vogel: Yeah, it’s not the only way you learn about life, but there are a lot of lessons that you learn in sports that apply to real life. The great thing is, win or lose, you can go home to your family. That’s not always the case in other parts of life.

MT: You grew up in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, and I don’t want to be the 100th reporter to ask you about your appearance on “Late Night with David Letterman.” What stood out most about growing up in Wildwood Crest?
Vogel: The beach. We were a big beach family. That and going to Philadelphia sporting events. Mainly the Phillies and the Sixers. The Eagles we mostly watched on TV. But we’d go to Sixers and Phillies games regularly, and when I’d sit on the beach in the summer, it’d be all about who had the radio on and what the Phillies were doing. I was sort of obsessed with the Phillies as a young kid. I’m sure I can name the starting lineup of the 1980 championship team: Bob Boone, Pete Rose, Manny Trillo, Larry Bowa, Schmitty (Mike Schmidt), and the outfield was Greg Luzinski, Garry Maddox and Bake McBride. The best starter was Steve Carlton and the closer was Tug McGraw. And then when Dr. J and Moses Malone had those teams in the early 1980’s, I was obsessed with those Sixers teams as well.

MT: South Jersey is basically a Philadelphia suburb across the water, right?
Vogel: You can kind of draw a line through Jersey, and everybody south of Philadelphia are Philadelphians; everybody north of that is basically New York suburbia. Wildwood is as far down south as you can go; if you go south of Philly to the water you’re going to hit Atlantic City, and if you go south about 45 more minutes, that’s where Wildwood Crest is.

MT: I read that on December 10, 1990, you and your mother had to escape out of a window of your house that was burning down? What do you recall?
Vogel: I was a senior in high school, and I was the one who woke up. I heard some noises, and wondered if somebody was at my house – I looked to my door, and there was smoke rushing into my room. I had to scream for my mother to wake up, and (maybe try) going out a side door, but I couldn’t stand up. I crawled to the door, couldn’t touch it because it’d burn my hand. So I’m starting to run out of breath, and I stand up to run back to my room, but it was like the feeling of when you put your face in an oven too fast and get that, ‘Wohh, I have to back up.’ I immediately went right back down to the ground. I knew we couldn’t go towards the front of the house, we had to go out separate windows in the back. And by opening up the windows it actually drew the fire throughout the back of the house, where we would have been able to save some of the stuff in the back probably. But all of that stuff didn’t matter. We got out safely, and we really saw how a small community can rally. They raised a ton of money, and all kinds of donations – I had a new wardrobe within 48 hours. Shirts, shoes, jeans, coats, people just donated for us. I’ll always remember that.

MT: How did the fire impact you moving forward?
Vogel: You just never know what the next day holds. I’ve probably lived more of a carpe diem life because of that. And also, when you go through tragedy in life, there’s light at the end of the tunnel and you get through it.

MT: You ended up going to Juniata College in Huntingdon, Penn., and I wonder how much basketball had to do with that decision?
Vogel: It was one of only two schools that recruited me. I wanted to be able to go somewhere that had a strong science program – I was intent on becoming a doctor. Juniata had a great pre-med program, and they felt like I could be a backup point guard my freshman year, so that sealed the deal.

MT: When did you start thinking about transferring?
Vogel: I was still committed to pre-med around the Duke-Kentucky game (in the 1992 East Regional Final), when (Christian) Laettner hit that shot. To me, Rick Pitino and Coach K (Mike Krzyzewski) were my two favorite coaches as I got through high school and I started falling in love with college basketball. I really admired those two coaches and their approach, so to see them go head to head in that type of game with Duke trying to repeat … the game itself had a lot of hype going into it, and then it outlived all the hype with one of the greatest games ever and one of the best shots ever. Even though the team I wanted to win lost, I was just obsessed with it at that point. At the time, I was doing pre-med but not really loving it. I had a paradigm shift of where I wanted to take my life and my career. I decided to look hard at Kentucky and think about transferring.

MT: As a kid, I used to watch John Stockton and ignorantly think, ‘Oh, I can do that!’ Eventually you figure out in sports where your skill set ranks with the larger group, and gain perspective at how incredible the actual professionals must be. Did you have a moment like that at Juniata where you started to think more about coaching as opposed to playing, and how much of that impacted your transfer to UK?
Vogel: The NBA was never even a thought for me. I was in love with March Madness and the NCAA, and that whole process of college athletes becoming a team. When I transferred to Kentucky, it was in part to jump start my coaching career, but also, I had grown a lot physically and come into my body by my junior year far more than when I was a senior in high school. I was playing against D1 players in the summer and more than holding my own. So I was thinking, ‘Maybe I’ll transfer down there and somehow talk my way into a walk-on spot. And if I fail, maybe I’ll be a student manager or something like that. And more importantly just to be around Rick Pitino and his system. I knew if I finished in Division III, I’d have been there the rest of my life, and that was a part-time commitment for most DIII schools at that time. My coach was a teacher during the day, and he coached DIII in the evenings. My passion was too strong for that. I wanted to work as hard as Rick Pitino worked. My Christmas break was three weeks, during the season … I’d go home and watch Rick Pitino have double sessions on Christmas Day. That’s how much I cared about winning, and I wanted to be part of that type of commitment.

MT: So you transferred after your junior year of college. By that point, Pitino is already a college coaching legend, and I’m sure a ton of student athletes wanted to be in that spot. How did you make it happen?
Vogel: I didn’t know him, but this is a business about knowing people and I knew I didn’t know anyone. I had to make that happen. At least in terms of earning opportunities, it is about who you know. So there were two different segments of letter writing to help me create some opportunities. One was to Five Star Basketball Camp, where I’d been as a player, but I knew Rick would go there and recruit. All the big college coaches did. I wrote letters to Five Star, and said let me come back as a counselor, give back to the camp, that sort of thing. It was really self-serving, because I wanted to get in front of Rick Pitino. A couple things happened: I went and coached the camp, got in pretty well with (head of the camp) Howard Garfinkel with some of the drill work I was doing. Because I made an impression on him, he chose to introduce me to Rick when he came. Rick was there with his new assistant Jim O’Brien, who eventually ended up being the Celtics, Pacers and Sixers head coach. When we met, I told him I was trying to transfer down to Kentucky, that I’d written letters and gotten a lot of form letters back that ‘We don’t have anything for you, thank you for your interest.’ I told him ‘I think I can help your program, I’d love to walk on, but if I can’t, I’ll be a student assistant coach, student manager, whatever.’ Rick just told Obi to take down my name, and he said ‘Well if you decide to come, if we can help you in any way, let us know.’ And that was enough.

MT: Sure seems like a good decision in hindsight!
Vogel: Yeah, it worked out. I never thought it would (ultimately) be the NBA. But the funny thing is, when I first got down to Kentucky, I got told by the equipment manager, ‘No, they’re only taking in-state kids,’ and so on. So I (worried) that it wasn’t going anywhere. I thought, ‘OK, let me go see Jim O’Brien.’ He’s the one that sort of made it happen with Rick. Basically told him that he could use somebody like me. The NCAA restricted what assistants could do, but a manager can do anything he wants. I think the fact that I was from South Jersey, a Philadelphia kid, resonated with Obi a little bit. But he said to me when he first created the opportunity with Rick: ‘You should get to know this video editing equipment. All the NBA teams have this. This is state of the art. You never know if Rick is going to go to the NBA someday, and if you know this stuff, you’re going to make yourself marketable for a job in the NBA.’ Three years later, sure enough, Rick takes the Boston Celtics job, and within a few days, I’m the head video coordinator of the Boston Celtics after being in Division III three years prior, wondering if I was going to be in Division III for the rest of my life. So I start with the Celtics, and my office is two doors down from Red Auerbach.

MT: Now that’s a pretty good story. What did you take most from your time in the film room?
Vogel: The film room teaches you how to do the job, how to study the game, how to teach the game from film. How to create an advantage for your team by knowing your opponent, and all their plays and tendencies. And there’s no better guy in the world that I’ve been around than Jim O’Brien at breaking down film. So while I was working under Rick, I was really being mentored by Obi on a more intimate basis. Who you know is how you get the opportunities, but how hard you work and what you know and how good you do at your job, that’s what leads to further opportunities. When I was at Kentucky, I never left the basketball offices ever, I earned a reputation of being the hardest worker in the program, and learned how to do the job. That’s carried over even to now.

MT: To fast forward a few years, you had a stint with the Lakers for the 2005-06 season as an advanced scout under Phil Jackson. I came to the Lakers in 2008, so I had three seasons covering him, and I was just amazed at how smart and interesting he was – he somehow surpassed his sky-high reputation in my eyes, at least. Anything stand out during that season to you?
Vogel: Well, I didn’t spend much time with him. I was on the road full time. The only time I was ever with the team was when they played the Sixers, since I was living in Philly at the time and came to shootaround. But what was great for me was talking to the assistants. I learned from Phil through the assistants about what they were doing: Frank Hamblen, Kurt Rambis and Brian Shaw, and Chris Bodaken (former video coordinator).

MT: Rewinding back to how you started your coaching career … it wasn’t just hard work, right? You really had to plan, and finesse, and figure out how to get yourself in. Anything else there?
Vogel: Risk taking. That’s the other big lesson I learned. Sometimes, you have to take a big risk. I gave up my senior year of playing basketball to make that move to Kentucky. And I knew by giving it up, I may go down there and never be part of the program. I didn’t have a job or an in yet, when I decided to give it up. But I took that risk hoping I could make something happen, and it obviously paid enormous dividends.

MT: Pitino was known as a maniac worker. You mentioned it clicked in for you and you wanted to work like that…
Vogel: There are a lot of different ways to say this, but when you’re able to find a job that is within your passion, you’re never at work. It’s what you love to do. It’s not like you’re going and working that hard. This is what I’m passionate about. This is what I want to be doing more than anything else. When you’re outworking everybody in sight, you’re going to give yourself a great chance to be successful.

MT: On many nights at home, I’ll tell my wife that I “Have to watch this game” for work … and it’s true. Of course, watching the game is what I’d be doing in my spare time anyway, for fun. Did that click early for you? From your parents, a coach, or just how you were wired?
Vogel: I was able to create an opportunity in something I’m passionate about. But both my parents are extremely hard, around-the-clock type workers. We were never afraid of that in our family. We actually needed it to support ourselves. So I learned that from my parents before any coach.

MT: You spent time with the staffs of the Celtics, Sixers and Pacers between 2001 and 2011 before ultimately getting the Pacers head job, but we’ll get to that in a moment. What was the benefit of the different hats you wore?
Vogel: I was the video coordinator in Boston, and when Rick stepped down and Jim O’Brien became the head coach, a couple of coaches dispersed, and Jim bumped me up to being a behind-the-bench coach. As a video coordinator, you have the opportunity to be on the court working with players, and some of the players got a good feel for me as a workout coach. I was there for three years, and then Jim went to coach the Sixers (2004-05), and moves me onto the bench. That was my first bench position as a coach.

MT: For people that don’t know, there are literally three assistant coaches on the bench next to the head coach, and several other coaches behind the bench. How different is being on the bench?
Vogel: You’re more important, your responsibilities are greater. Your voice is stronger, it means more to the players and to the process. But the job responsibilities for me didn’t really change that much. I was the workhorse of our staff both in Boston and in Philly, and that ultimately led Jim O’Brien in Indiana to bump me up to being the lead assistant.

MT: At what point of this climb up the assistant coaching ranks (video coordinator ➡️advanced scout ➡️ behind-the-bench assistant ➡️ bench assistant ➡️lead assistant) did you start to think about becoming a head coach, and what you’d do if you had your own team?
Vogel: It’s tough to say. When you’re competing, and you’re doing all the prep work, studying different coaching staffs, terminology and system, the way they do things, the level of their switching, whether they’re playing up tempo or more methodical, you measure how much fear and respect you have going in to face a certain opponent. Some systems and coaches you go in and say, ‘This team is not very disciplined,’ and you feel good about that game plan. Or you go into playing Pat Riley or Phil Jackson, Gregg Popovich, and you know you’re going to be in for a dogfight no matter if they have talent or not. They’re just super organized and they play harder than everyone else. So within that, I started establishing a respect level for certain coaches that I saw and admired, and when you get closer to being a head coach, you’re helping your head coach formulate your team’s plan. So, ‘Hey, Jeff Van Gundy is doing it this way … Stan Van Gundy calls it this … one of the things Phil liked to do with the Lakers is this…’ So you’re putting in suggestions to the head coach, and then when you take over, you’ve already had all that knowledge.

MT: You end up taking over for O’Brien after he was fired in January of 2011. Was there any part of you that saw that coming?
Vogel: Not at all. We were in the fourth year of Jim’s tenure, and we hadn’t gotten to the playoffs yet. So I felt like if we didn’t get there, we’d all be out. But I had not anticipated any type of midseason change, nor did I anticipate that I would be the guy chosen, because they had an assistant coach, Dan Burke, who’d been there for many years and was one of (GM) Larry Bird’s guys. But you always prepare for it, and then it happened.

MT: Can I assume that you and Jim O’Brien were close, and that must have been a very difficult moment for you?
Vogel: As close as close gets. Primary mentor in basketball and in life. It was a terribly difficult day made very easy by him. I don’t know if you know this story, but Larry calls me and says, ‘We’re going to make a coaching change,’ and wanted to know if I was interested in coaching the team. I quickly go into an argument that he should not do it, that it’s a mistake, that we’re going to turn it around, that Obi’s going to do it. Then I quickly get interrupted, by Jim O’Brien, who was on speakerphone with Larry, after he’d just been fired. He said, ‘Hey it’s Obi on the phone … listen I want to tell you thank you for standing up for me, but this is the right thing for our team. This is the right thing for your career. You’re the right guy for this job. You should stop arguing now. Just take this job, take this opportunity and kill it.’ The two of them just talking to me, unified like that, gave me a lot of confidence.

MT: And what a class way for O’Brien to handle it…
Vogel: All class. Relationships get frayed in those situations, but Obi didn’t let that happen, nor did I.

MT: How did you go from that moment, to likely preparing for a game the next day?
Vogel: Obviously I’d been talking about some stylistic things that we could change with Obi. He was progressive, and we were ahead of the curve in terms of playing all small line ups, and Troy Murphy at the 5…

MT: Stretch 5!
Vogel: Right, nobody in the league was playing stretch 5’s (in 2011). Danny Granger, sliding him to the 4, and things like that. Our vets probably weren’t good enough to be a really good team with that roster. But we had a couple of young big guys that were kind of, in my mind, ass kickers, in Tyler Hansbrough and Josh McRoberts, and he wasn’t playing those guys. I didn’t know what our ceiling was going to be with that group, but I knew the energy would change immediately by empowering those guys. So we made some stylistic changes to being a smash mouth basketball team, a power-post office, playing big full time and committing to that. I think it really helped Roy Hibbert, too, because Obi was really hard on Roy trying to push him to be better, and it kind of hurt his confidence – though it’s ironic they’re working together now in Philadelphia. To me, it was really about a stylistic change, and empowering our young guys. I felt like our young guys gave us as good a chance to succeed as our vets. We replaced T.J. Ford with A.J. Price. Hansbrough and McRoberts are fulltime 4’s, which means James Posey no longer plays, and he’s a champion and respected vet, which was a hard move. Danny Granger is no longer going to play small ball 4, but the 3, with Paul George playing the 2. And we were able to have success down the stretch, and in that first playoff series that we lost (4-1 to Chicago) we were super competitive, had leads in the final two minutes of the first three games, even though we lost. I guess I did enough to earn the job (moving forward).

MT: Quick review: you go from 37 wins that season to 42, 49 and then 56 wins in the next three seasons. Clear, steady improvement, but you run into LeBron and Miami in the postseason all three times, including losses in Game 7 and Game 6 of the Eastern Finals. Then there’s a drop off to 38 and 45 wins in the next two seasons, before Nate McMillan took over for you in Indiana, and you were soon hired in Orlando. How would you summarize your Magic tenure?
Vogel: The first year, we tried to play big with a lineup that wasn’t going to really succeed with the rest of the league really accelerating to small ball lineups. Serge Ibaka was probably best playing center, Aaron Gordon playing 4, but we started the season with too many bigs deserving of important roles and the pieces just didn’t quite fit. We fixed it at the trade deadline to bring everybody back to their normal position, and had some success towards the end of that year. Second year, we had a lot of expectations, and we thought we could make a playoff push and got smashed with injuries. Between year one and year two, the front office had changed and wanted to put their stamp on things, and they cleared house, all coaches, all video and all medical team. They hit the reset button on the franchise, and that’s part of this business. You wish them well, and hope for the best with your next opportunity.

MT: GM Rob Pelinka covered the reasons why you were hired to coach the Lakers in your introductory presser back in May, so I won’t belabor that. You did say that protecting the basket was still the most important thing for a defense, even with the increasing importance of the 3-point line. And that was before Rob traded for Anthony Davis, re-signed JaVale McGee and signed Dwight Howard, who have combined to average over six blocks per game in their careers.
Vogel: That will definitely help, but it’s not going to automatically equate to my Roy Hibbert-based defenses. The offensive evolution has changed that whole mindset of camping out a rim protector for 48 minutes. It’s just difficult to do that. Most teams play at least half the game with five 3-point shooters out there. Sometimes the whole game. The Raptors, for all the credit they got with (Pascal) Siakim and Kawhi (Leonard) and the ‘size’ they play with … Serge (Ibaka) and Marc Gasol are 3-point shooting 5’s, so they played 48 minutes with five 3-point shooters out there. So it’s difficult to guard and it’s difficult to take a McGee or a Howard and say, ‘OK now we’re going to take care of everything at the rim,’ because they’re guarding strong side corner, they’re guarding the top of the key, they’re not just in the dunker all the time. We still have to evolve tremendously defensively in terms of what we did in Indiana considering what this defense here is going to look like.

MT: I asked Anthony Davis at his presser about playing the 5, and he said he prefers the 4, but then looked directly at you and said, ‘But if it comes down to it, Coach, I’ll play the 5.’ Meanwhile, he said in a recent interview that he’s been working on his 3 all summer, so perhaps you get some of that big-man-shooting there.
Vogel: Yup.

MT: But what I wanted to ask about Davis ties in with LeBron as well. Cohesion is obviously really important in the NBA, and you don’t have a ton of that on the roster…
Vogel: Correct.

MT: But, does having two stars, and the rest of the players who “should” know that they’re there to support them, can that fast track cohesion in some way?
Vogel: I hope so. But it’d probably be irresponsible to think it’s all going to happen overnight, and that we’re going to start the season with great cohesiveness. There are going to be bumps in the road, there are nights where it might be ugly, and guys are getting to know each other on both ends of the floor. Guys figuring out what their role is going to be on this team. But with a team that’s going through change, if you’re going to pick guys to do it, you want to pick smart, respected vets, which we have an abundance of on this team. There’s still optimism that we can get off to a strong start.

MT: What’s been notable in your conversations with your assistant coaches Jason Kidd, Lionel Hollins, Phil Handy and the rest of the staff as you guys map out the approach for 2019-20?
Vogel: I couldn’t be happier with how the coaching staff chemistry has begun. You never know how personalities are going to mix. It’s the same thing we said with the players. It’s six new guys coming together, and you have to get everybody up to speed with what you’ve done and create roles that everybody feels good about, because that’s when they’re going to be at their best. Hopefully I’ve done a good job with creating that environment for our guys … and also create an environment where we can get to know each other, spend time with each other, dine together and hopefully learn to love and respect each other and it seems to be off to a great start.

MT: One question about analytics and watching film. Last year, in 2-man line up groupings, LeBron and Alex Caruso had a strong net rating if in a small sample size, while LeBron and Rajon Rondo’s rating wasn’t as high. As a coach, how do you weigh statistics to either support or debunk what you’re seeing on the film, in case it doesn’t go hand in hand?
Vogel: It’s a tool in the toolbox, it’s not the toolbox. The Rondo and LeBron stuff was a little surprising to me, because they’re obviously two of the game’s greats, but in some ways also not surprising when you look at the environment around them in terms of the team’s lack of shooting last year around those two guys. The pieces have got to fit, and we had a long conversation about that, and I actually expect it to be a complete reversal this year. I think those two guys will be great together. Obviously, LeBron really likes playing with guys like Caruso, guys that can do everything and play on or off the ball, guard at a high level. So I think that’ll be the same as well. But you look at the numbers and you ask why. Sometimes the answer is evident, sometimes it’s not. Then you look, ‘Can it be tinkered with’ to make it work if it wasn’t working.’ Those are some of the things that we’re talking about now.

MT: There was one storyline earlier this summer about LeBron playing point guard, and my thought was … well, he’s always had the ball on offense and run the show because he’s great at it, but he’s not going to guard point guards. So, nothing new here...
Vogel: Correct, obviously, it’s an offensive role. It would be an offensive mindset. I went back and watched all of our playoff games from the last year we played Miami, just to look at that balance specifically, and (Mario) Chalmers and Norris Cole never brought the ball up. Almost the entire series. LeBron handled it the entire time. It’s not anything that’s going to be new if we play line ups with LeBron as the primary ballhandler. He’ll be in that role some, and he’ll be in a role with a true point guard too.

MT: The term “load management” really gained steam last season, and I thought the example discussed the most – Kawhi Leonard – was actually more of an anomaly. He’d played only nine games in the previous season due to a unique injury, so his totaling 60 games seemed more of a set plan specific to him. Have we gone too far in the way we talked about player rest, and is it perhaps more specific to the individual?
Vogel: To me it’s more of a case-to-case basis. I understand why they had that approach with Kawhi and the benefits they received from it. It doesn’t mean Player X on a lottery team should be sitting out (when healthy), or Player X on a top team should be sitting out, a healthy guy, a random game in December. You have to follow the recommendation of your medical team. That’s what it comes down to. And what they decide, you roll with that.

MT: You’ve had a lot of guys in working out at the facility here. Have you found yourself going, ‘Wow, this guy is in great shape,’ or ‘He’s added a tool out I didn’t know about?’
Vogel: I think Rondo has shot the heck out of the basketball from the 3-point line. I think Avery (Bradley), KCP, Dwight (Howard) and Jared Dudley all look lighter and are in great shape. LeBron has had a great summer physically and is in great shape. Danny Green (looks great). Seeing AD up close and personal just gets you excited about what his season is going to look like. Our young guys – Caruso and Quinn Cook – have shown me a lot. I feel good about throwing those guys in at any point. They could be competing for some big roles for our team. JaVale (McGee) is a serious dude that works, that’s in a far different place mentally in his career than he was earlier in his career. Kuzma is a 10 out of 10 attitude and worker, and just a guy that’s going to be an ass kicker for us this year. Daniels, the shooting. And what I love, more than individual speaking, is the shooting that we have. At every position. Aside from our two rolling centers, everybody has the ability to carry a threat from the 3-point line. I think when you have that type of supporting cast around elite offensive players, you’re going to be a good team.

MT: Right, Rob Pelinka added four 40 percent career 3-point shooters in July.
Vogel: It’s really going to be about how quickly and consistently we commit to playing team basketball.

MT: There are reports of LeBron setting up a little minicamp in Las Vegas before training camp starts. Have to assume you like that idea?
Vogel: Yeah, absolutely. Guys get together, get to spend some time together, get to know each other a little bit on the court. That’s a good thing.

MT: You’ve been around the NBA so much, you know how everything works, and you must know how much everybody in L.A. and all the Lakers fans around the country and the world care about winning. You’ve mentioned before that’s something you want and expect?
Vogel: Exactly, and it is very different from Indiana and Orlando. Indiana is the home of basketball, and basketball is more important to people in Indiana than it is in anywhere else in the world … except for Southern California. Because the Lakers are important. It’s a religion to the people of this area. And I love that. Because that’s where my care factor is with whatever team I’m on. It’s just something that matters to people. That’s not been the case with every place that I’ve been to, and I’m just excited to be a part of a team where that’s the case.

MT: When you’d go into certain markets with the Pacers or Magic, you certainly weren’t going to see half the arena in Purple and Gold, but that will happen in Atlanta, Washington and Detroit to name a few
Vogel: That never happened with any team I’ve been a part of, that’s for sure.