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Frank Vogel Hops on the Vertical Podcast with Chris Mannix

Dan Savage
Director of Digital News

By Dan Savage

June 28, 2016

ORLANDO – Frank Vogel was one of the hottest names of the free agent coaching market this offseason.

As a result, when a vacancy opened up in Orlando, the Magic aggressively pursued and eventually acquired him as the next head coach for their organization.

So what made Vogel choose Orlando? And what are his plans for the team this season?

Vogel answered all those questions and more during his recent appearance on the Vertical Podcast with Chris Mannix.

Here are some of the most interesting excerpts from their conversation:

Chris: So what was it, like 48 hours of unemployment there? Did you have to update your resume and stuff?

Frank: Yeah, there was no resume updating. It was a very quick turnaround, but it was definitely a chaotic time for sure. One that hopefully landed me in a great situation down here in Orlando.

Chris: When was the last time you actually updated a resume?

Frank: That’s a really good question. I might have been at the University of Kentucky. I’m not sure. I haven’t had a need for doing that throughout my career. Thankfully.

Chris: So there’s no like send Alex Martins an updated bullet point - five years Indiana Pacers, all that.

Frank: Yeah, like I said. You know what, when we got let go with the 76ers, for two years I was sending resumes out. I had some stuff ready back then. That was the last time. But there was no resume involved in this exchange here, joining the Magic.

Chris: It must be an entirely different feeling for you, because I remember during that time between the 76ers and when you jumped on (Jim O’Brien’s) staff in Indiana, you were looking at a bunch of stuff. You were doing regional scouting. I remember you telling me potentially jumping back into the college ranks. How much different did it feel for you entering – I hesitate to use the word unemployment, we can kind of joke about that – but entering a time where you’re without a job now vs. being without a job five or six years ago?

Frank: Well, it was a very different situation because of the demand and the interest that I received immediately upon being let go by the Pacers. My agent called me, he gave me a couple of hours to digest what had just happened and be with my family and just said ‘call me when you’re ready to talk,’ and I called him a few hours later and he said ‘I know you’re upset, but you’ve got a lot of interest right now.’ And basically said that every team that had an opening wanted to speak to me immediately. That softened the blow for sure of what had just happened. And that was very different than obviously years ago when I was an assistant. The competition for assistant coaching spots in this league is just incredible. When we were let go by Philadelphia, you know, there was a lot less certainty at that time.

Chris: That must have been – I can only imagine that would have been a really good feeling for you to go from obviously the disappointment of not being brought back in Indiana to the next day, or hours after really, having your agent say to you, ‘like man, there’s so much out there.’ I would imagine that’s – there’s still going to be a sting, but I would imagine that would take a lot of it off, right?

Frank: It did. Look to be honest, we were so happy in Indiana and I’m so found of that organization and that team and that community there, that it did take a little bit of the sting out of it, but I had said all along that I didn’t want to coach anywhere else. I wanted to be there, my family wanted to be there, so it didn’t remove that. You know the fact that we were going to have to relocate and that’s a difficult part of this business that I think the common fan doesn’t appreciate how challenging that can be on the families. But again, we feel like we found ourselves a great situation, a great new home down here in Orlando. The weather is great, we’ve got a great organization, the team is up and coming and the community is a good one to be a part of. So, while there is a lot of discomfort with the uncertainty of relocating as a family, things work out. What do they say, when one door closes another one opens and sometimes the one that opens is better than the one that closed. So, we’re hoping that’s the case here.

Chris: You’ve already got the coaching clichés down pat. ‘One door closes,’ I like it.

Frank: (Laughter) I’ve been doing this for a while.

Chris: (Laughter) You know, coaches are a different breed, Frank. You guys are workaholics. You’re dedicated to working year in, year out. And sometimes, if you look at your situation, some people might of said, maybe you’ll just take a year off, there will be coaching vacancies the next year. How close were you to saying, ‘I’m just going to take this year off and wait to see what happens next season?’

Frank: You know I was very close. To be honest, I think I was probably leaning towards that. Aside from the interest that I received and I really felt like if it wasn’t a great, great situation that I wasn’t going to jump into something just to have a job or just to take advantage of an offer. I really wanted to find something that I felt fit my family and was a good next step in my coaching journey. There were a couple that were very interesting, very appealing, but this one down here in Orlando was really something that I thought was a great, great situation. With where this team is, the young roster, how close they are to turning the corner and a great location, a great city to live in with the weather and the state taxes. And if you’re from the East Coast, and you’re from New Jersey or from Boston, living in Florida, that’s like West Coast people living in Hawaii. That something that everybody, all of our parents when they retire, they move down to Florida. It’s just such a great place to live, so that combined with the first-class organization they have in place down here and the up-and-coming roster in my mind that’s ready to really turn the corner and make a big splash over the next few years was all very, very appealing.

Chris: What was it about Orlando that maybe separated that job from others?

Frank: I think the future. First and foremost, the roster that Rob Hennigan has put together here, the young core is very, very talented and has tremendous upside. On personal level, it reminded me of the team I took over in Indiana with a young Paul George, young Lance Stephenson, young Roy Hibbert and a chance to kind of mold these guys the way that I would like to see them play. That similarity, I had an immediate connection with Rob Hennigan when we interviewed. And as you start looking at the situation even deeper, the ownership is great. The new facility here is one that is attractive for free agents to come and want to be a part of. The state of Florida is an attractive place to live. Many, many pro athletes that play in the city or don’t play in the city have homes here. It’s just an attractive place to be. I felt like with the young core that we have in place here, I feel like we can make some noise, but it’s definitely a free agent destination, a place where I feel like guys are going to want to come and play for the Orlando Magic, especially because of what we’re building here. They want to play for a winner, they want to play in a great city and all those things fit with this situation. So it just made it a very, very attractive situation for me.

Chris: That the job, Frank, was opening in the first place was surprising. The Scott Skiles resignation kind of came out of nowhere for a lot of people. Did you ask about what happened there or did you just look at it as that’s a totally different situation than mine I’m not all that interested?

Frank: I did a little bit of background research just talking to some people. I didn’t really talk to Rob about it, I didn’t really talk to coach Skiles about it. I’ve always been of the mindset that relationships can be different and relationships can go bad with different people. That doesn’t mean they’re going to be a bad relationship with me. I’ve always had the ability to sort of get along with others and work well with others, so I didn’t feel like there was going to be any kind of issues in regards to, whatever happened with coach Skiles and his decision. You just let that go and respect that and I feel like things are going to be different with me.

Chris: You’re a different place coaching wise than you were when you took over in Indiana. You’ve had tremendous success, you’re one of the best young coaches out there. Anyone will say that. Does that change your desire to have more input when it comes to personnel moves or how do you view the coach-general manger relationship, what it should be?

Frank: It really doesn’t change that at all in terms of what point in my career I’m at. Just because I’ve coached for five and a half years as opposed to being a rookie or first year coach, that doesn’t change things at all. In fact, I really like the separation of front office and head coach. I believe in letting them do their job and putting together a team. I believe in working together with them to create that vision of how are we going to build this and what’s style of play and what’s the personnel we want to target? But I believe in ultimately, they have a whole division of our organization to study personnel and to do all the background research and to study the draft and bring the types of players they know that I like and then I go out and create the vision on the court. I think that’s a healthy separation, one I’ve always been really comfortable with in working with the Pacers and Larry Bird and Kevin Pritchard and one that’s off to a very strong start here in Orlando with Rob Hennigan.

Chris: I want to ask you about that style, because for four and half, five years, maybe, you played a power ball style. You had the personnel for it, you had Roy Hibbert, you had David West, you had the guys that were built to play a physical half-court brand. You transitioned, albeit briefly, kind of in to a smaller style. You talked about how the NBA is changing. When you look at the personnel, you’ve had a little bit of time to kind of sink your teeth into it, have you been able to kind of figure out what kind of style you’d like to play with this team next year?

Frank: I have. We’re definitely going to still commit to the defensive end. I feel like winning starts with defense and rebounding. We will commit to that end and we will be great on that end of the floor. What I like about this team is I love the ability, the athleticism that we have when you look at guys like … Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton, Mario Hezonja. These guys can get out and fly and attack the rim. You have a skilled big man in Nik Vucevic and a few other guys even at the big position that can really space the floor. I think we’re going to be a different offensive team than what we’ve seen in Indiana in terms of our ability to run the floor, to space with our bigs, to play a really dramatically different style of play offensively, while maintaining what we’ve come to know and trust on the defensive end. I feel like we’re going to be able to get both things done and win at a high level. I’m really excited about what free agency is going to look like, what additions we have and then digging my hands in and getting with this young core that we have in place here.

Chris: I’m sure you’re excited on various levels about a lot of guys that you’re going to be inheriting and coaching up next year, but is there one guy on the roster that when you took this job you were like I really want to see what I can do with him or I’m really excited about the future of this particular guy?

Frank: There’s really not one. That’s what’s so appealing about this job … There are several young guys on this roster that I feel have a great chance to really explode over the next two, three, four years during my tenure here. I’m excited to get to work with all of these guys.

Chris: I feel like, Frank, that in some situations losing kind of begets losing. And what I mean by that is when you’re kind of accustomed to failure when you’re young guys, it can kind of steamroll when things go bad last season. From my perspective that’s kind of what happened last year with this team. When things got tough, they just hadn’t, the younger guys haven’t had the success to dig their way out of it. How much does this team kind of need to become more disciplined and change the culture sort of a little bit of what they have been in years past?

Frank: Well, I thought they played a pretty disciplined brand of basketball last year with coach Skiles. I thought he did a really good job with these guys. A lot of times, it’s just about youth makes mistakes. As guys get a little bit older and they get little bit more experience and hopefully they get, what I hope to bring here is some stability in the system, about how to play, what we’re going to implement. Those things go away, the mistakes and the breakdowns and they become minimized. These guys gain confidence and grow in the belief of what they can accomplish. It’s my job to make sure that everybody is feeling good about their role and feeling good about their individual growth and how it’s going to contribute to the team growth. So I feel like all those things are going to happen this year.

Chris: When you’ve been digging into this team a little bit and looking at what they did last year, is that what you saw, kind of from the end of last season? Because the first couple of months, Orlando looked like a playoff team. They looked great. All the young guys that you’re talking about, they were playing almost above their heads to some degree. Then, things kind of derailed in the second half of the season. From what you have studied about them, where did you see them kind of go south and what can you do to correct that?

Frank: Well again, I think they just hit a rut like all young teams are vulnerable to do. The Eastern Conference last year, was very, very strong and very, very deep. So, as you’re trying to break through with a lot of teams, this version of the Orlando Magic from this past season played in the Eastern Conference three years ago, they would have been probably in the position to be a sixth or seventh seed. Not at 35 wins, but with weaker competition. I think they just faced a different Eastern Conference at a time where they’re trying to get over the hump and it was just too much for them. I feel like this year is going to be another step for them.

Listen to the entire podcast here.