Frank Vogel

Josh Cohen

ORLANDO – At one end of the NBA spectrum there’s the free-agency frenzy, a chaotic time when veteran players are lavishly courted by teams desperate to make a splash and are expected ink guaranteed contracts totaling more than $1 billion total.

At the extreme other end of the vast NBA spectrum there are the Summer Leagues, a time in the offseason when overlooked and undervalued players scratch and fight throughout most of July for the opportunity to scratch and fight again in training camp for a roster spot on a team in the regular season.

One such league, the Southwest Airlines Orlando Pro Summer League, tips off on Saturday and is filled with NBA hopefuls praying that they can impress GMs and scouts enough to land on rosters in the fall. The 25-game, seven-day event in Orlando will feature two teams from the Magic, along with squads from the Charlotte Hornets, Dallas Mavericks, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, Los Angeles Clippers, Miami Heat, New York Knicks and Oklahoma City Thunder.

The games will be played on the Magic’s practice court at the Amway Center and will be closed to the public due to space limitations. NBA TV will televise all of the games (with 24 being broadcast live) and OrlandoMagic.com will publish recaps and box scores minutes after each game over the next seven days.

Unlike in years past when the rosters for the Orlando Summer League were packed with high-profile draft picks or prominent second-year players, this year’s cast is a mostly anonymous group looking to make names for themselves. Stanley Johnson (Pistons), Josh Richardson (Heat), Glen Robinson III (Pacers), Cleanthony Early (Knicks), Mitch McGary (Thunder) are the most accomplished players in the league.

Orlando’s most prominent players are 2016 second-round pick Stephen Zimmerman, 2015 second-round pick Tyler Harvey and Magic holdover Devyn Marble, who will be playing in his third consecutive Summer League.

Magic head coach Frank Vogel, who was hired in late May following the departure of Scott Skiles, won’t be on the sidelines this week, but he will be busy evaluating and monitoring players. Vogel’s newly named staff of Chad Forcier, Corliss Williamson, David Adelman and Jay Hernandez will coach one of the Magic’s Summer League, while Erie Bayhawks head coach Bill Peterson will guide the other Orlando entry.

Vogel said he will be watching Zimmerman, the 41st overall pick of last week’s NBA Draft, to see how he takes to instruction and playing with others.

``We want to see how coachable he is,’’ Vogel said. ``A lot of players come into this league wanting to show how well they can shoot, how well they can rebound and how well they can defend, but for us it’s about how coachable are you and how quickly can you pick up what the coach is trying to get you to do in the system. And how can you contribute to the chemistry of your team? And what kind of guy are you?

``All of those intangibles are what we’re looking for with Zimm more than anything,’’ said Vogel of the 7-foot, 240-pound Zimmerman, who averaged 10.5 points, 8.7 rebounds and 1.96 blocks as a 19-year-old freshman at UNLV. ``We kind of know what his skill set is, but we want to see it against a greater talent level and the speed in summer league will be faster than he saw in college, but not as fast as the NBA. So it’s a good building opportunity for him.’’

On Orlando’s other summer league entry, Nnanna Egwu, Jordan Sibert, Aaron Bowen and Alex Davis all played for the Magic’s Development League team, the Erie Bayhawks last season. Center/power forward Landry Nnoko, a native of Cameroon, graduated high school just outside of Orlando at Montverde Academy and is trying to grab the attention of the Magic with his defensive skills. Nnoko, a 6-foot-10, 255-pounder, finished fifth in Clemson history in blocked shots with 212.

``We’ll be looking to evaluate all of the guys on these rosters and a lot of times guys make strides in their career and we want to see how much they have improved,’’ Vogel said. ``Part of building a deep team is being able to find guys from the D-League who give you value, won’t cost you as much and aren’t big salary cap hits. You want to be able to throw them out there and know that they are going to give you (production).’’

Note: The contents of this page have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Orlando Magic. All opinions expressed by John Denton are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Orlando Magic or their Basketball Operations staff, partners or sponsors.

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Summer League Gives Magic Coaching Staff Look at Young Talent

ORLANDO – A true mark of a great basketball coach is someone who can adapt with the changing times in today’s NBA and adjust their system to fit the talent available.

Whereas Frank Vogel once had big-time success in Indiana by using a methodical, grind-it-out system that was rooted in physical defense, he is now vowing to pick up the pace in Orlando to maximize the potential of a Magic roster that is loaded with young, springy legs, blinding speed and gazelle-like athleticism.

Vogel, who was hired by the Magic on Friday and introduced in a news conference on Monday, is vowing that he will be flexible in how he goes about building a winner in Orlando. He sees no reason why the Magic can’t overwhelm foes with the athleticism and youth of Victor Oladipo, Evan Fournier, Aaron Gordon, Elfrid Payton, Mario Hezonja, while also building a stingy defense that will make it tough for others to score. Vogel said he welcomes the introduction of analytics into the game of basketball and he has no problem adapting to the ``small ball’’ and ``space and pace’’ styles so prevalently used in today’s game.

``Every style is dictated by the personnel you have on your roster,’’ said Vogel, who becomes Orlando’s 13th coach in franchise history. ``We had some teams (in Indiana) that were built around size and strength, so you have to play to that strength, play to that style of play.

``We did pick it up, from a play standpoint, dramatically this past season because we changed our personnel a little bit,’’ Vogel continued. ``There was more a desire to do so. I have a great desire to play up and down, a great desire. I feel like we have the athleticism and youth (in Orlando) to achieve that, right away. As these guys grow they will get better year after year, but it is predicated on your personnel.’’

Vogel, 42, feels that he was unfairly labeled as a coach who continually choked down the game and kept the Pacers from playing an up-tempo style in Indiana. And the numbers back up his argument.

Whereas the Pacers ranked 28th and 27th in fast break points in 2013-14 and 2014-15, they improved to 12th this past season. Also, Indiana was 23rd and 26th in points off turnovers in 2013-14 and 2014-15, but jumped all the way into a tie for first in that category this past season. Those teams of two and three years ago included lumbering big men Roy Hibbert and David West, while this past season’s squad focused more around the running abilities of Paul George, Monta Ellis, George Hill and young big man Myles Turner.

When Vogel’s contract was allowed to run out in Indiana following a Game 7 loss to the second-seeded Toronto Raptors, the assumption coursing throughout the NBA was that the coach was resistant to playing up-tempo basketball as Pacers president Larry Bird wanted. Bird said before the season that he wanted Indy to experiment playing Paul George more at power forward in an attempt to help the team score more points and play at a faster pace.

That experiment was scrapped early in the season when George balked at the physical toll that position switch would take on his body and because Vogel liked having two bigger players on the floor to help with rebounding and rim protection. Vogel said recently that his departure from Indiana had more to do with Bird wanting the team to hear a new voice than some disagreement over the style of play.

``No, that’s a misconception about this whole deal. Larry and I have been very well aligned all the way through these six years, including the decision to try and play faster and smaller,’’ Vogel said Monday morning on ESPN’s ``Mike and Mike’’ radio show. ``This is not something I was resistant to.

``It’s a style of play that I am going to try and implement with the Orlando Magic. We’re going to try and get up and down and run the floor,’’ Vogel vowed. ``There was a lot made when this all came out about Larry vs. Frank and their differences, but really throughout the whole process we were very well aligned. It was just a matter of a feeling that a change in the voice of the head coach could give the franchise a boost. It wasn’t about a difference of opinion or a difference in philosophy; it was really just about change.’’

Orlando made a 10-win improvement this past season largely by improving their defense early in the season and picking up the pace under new head coach Scott Skiles. Before Skiles abruptly resigned as Orlando’s coach on May 12, the Magic jumped up to fifth in the NBA in points off turnovers and 16th in fast break points this past season.

While those were marked improvements over the previous two seasons, Orlando still has room to grow in terms of scoring (18th in the NBA), 3-point attempts (22nd), offensive rating (22nd) and pace (14th). Indiana, which won 45 games this past season under Vogel, ranked 17th in scoring, 20th in 3-point attempts, 23rd in offensive rating and 10th in pace.

Vogel vowed that he is a strong proponent of pushing the pace and that’s what he plans on having the Magic doing next season.

``I think this Magic team has really good speed and we can do it even better than we did in Indianapolis,’’ Vogel said. ``I think Aaron Gordon’s ability to play at the power forward position in today’s game gives you four guys who can push it and run and that’s incredibly valuable. That’s not even mentioning what Vic can do and what Elfrid can do. Evan can run and Hezonja’s ability to run the floor and have that electricity when he attacks the basket and finishes – I think this could be an exceptional running team and that’s the style that we’re going to play.’’

Again, great coaches take the personnel that they have on hand and fit their system around it. Vogel insisted that the teams that he coached in Indiana and the ones he will lead in Orlando are vastly different and therefore his style of coaching will adjust and adapt as well.

``We grinded it out a couple of years there in Indianapolis because that’s what the personnel dictated and the style of play that group needed to play with,’’ said Vogel, who twice guided Indy teams to the Eastern Conference Finals. ``But I believe that this game is meant to be played in attack mode. And I really believe we have the speed and athleticism to do that with this (Magic) group.’’

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Frank Vogel Wants Magic to Utilize Speed and Athleticism

ORLANDO – Hired specifically to help the Orlando Magic maximize the potential of a young, blossoming roster and end the franchise’s four-year playoff drought, head coach Frank Vogel didn’t shy away from those lofty expectations in Monday’s introductory news conference.

``We’re going to win, and it’s that simple,’’ Vogel said with conviction. ``We’re going to go out and work our tails off, instill discipline and inspire our guys … and we’re going to win games. Obviously, this group hasn’t been to the playoffs, but if you want to look for a bar where we’re going to set the standard for our goals, we’re going to get in the playoffs this year. We’re going to start there.’’

Vogel is no stranger to the playoffs, guiding the Indiana Pacers to the playoffs five times in his nearly six years as the coach there. Within a week’s time earlier this month, Vogel’s contract wasn’t renewed in Indiana and Orlando’s job became available when Scott Skiles resigned as head coach, creating an opportunity for the marriage between Vogel, 42, and the Magic.

Orlando speeded up its hiring process because Memphis, New York and Houston also had coaching vacancies and Vogel is widely considered to be the most attractive candidate on the market. The two sides worked quickly to come to an agreement and on Monday the Magic happily introduced the infectiously positive Vogel as their 13th coach in franchise history.

``No departure is fun, but I’m a firm believer that when one door closes another one opens,’’ said Magic CEO Alex Martins, referring to Skiles’ resignation on May 12. ``Sometimes an even better one can open, and we believe that can be the case here. As the door closed on Scott’s short tenure here another one opened that allowed us to attract a coach of Frank’s caliber and success. It opens a door that could allow us to be a lot more successful.’’

Vogel was 250-181 in 5 ½ regular seasons in Indiana and 31-30 in the playoffs with two trips to the Eastern Conference Finals. He guided the Pacers to the playoffs in 2011 as an interim coach and got them there every year other than the one that superstar forward Paul George missed (2014-15) while recovering from a serious leg injury.

Vogel, who learned the coaching ropes at a young age from Rick Pitino while at the University of Kentucky and in the NBA with the Boston Celtics, believes wholeheartedly in having confidence and instilling it in others. He has gotten to the position he’s in now by believing in hard work and teaching the game the right way, so he sees no reason in not having high expectations for the Magic right away.

``I believe in what I do and my ability to tie all the strings together and I believe in the talent that we have here,’’ he said. ``Combine that with the flexibility that we have to make additions – and I do believe that we are going to make some real, quality additions – that makes me confident that we’re going to have success.’’

Martins said it was telling of the Magic’s reputation that Vogel chose Orlando over other teams such as Memphis and Houston that already have made the playoffs this season. Martins also likes that Vogel is talking big in terms of winning, knowing that all the pieces are in place now for the Magic to take the next step next season.

``We believe him and it’s exactly what we feel,’’ Martins said of Vogel’s playoff predictions. ``We feel like we were on that path before and now to add his experience of having been to the playoffs five of the last six years and to the Eastern Conference Finals twice in the past six years, it’s one of those pieces that we’ve talked about – in addition to getting some more veteran players – to telling our young players how to get there who have never been there. We want to transition our players from not having been to the playoffs to regularly being in the playoffs.’’

Magic standouts Evan Fournier and Victor Oladipo were at the team’s practice facility on Monday morning when Vogel arrived and they both attended the coach’s introductory news conference. Fournier is friends with fellow Frenchman Ian Mahinimi and Oladipo is close with George – two players who were standouts in Indiana – to get some insider knowledge on their new coach. Both are extremely excited about playing for Vogel in Orlando.

``It was never easy to play against his teams in Indiana and it was always a pain to play the Pacers being very aggressive and a defensive-minded team,’’ said Fournier, a restricted free agent who expects to return net season. ``You knew coming in that it was always going to be a tough game (against Vogel’s Indiana teams), so if we can be that team now it will be perfect.’’

Added Oladipo: ``It’s huge for us that he would pick us. It says a lot about him and it says a lot about our roster, how he views us and where he thinks we can go. I’m looking forward to playing for him and I think it’s going to be a great journey. He’s been successful and he expects nothing less here, so we’ve got to catch up to him and have that high demand of ourselves.’’

Vogel said he didn’t feel inclined to talk to Skiles about his reasons for leaving the bench following just one season in Orlando because ``every relationship works differently.’’ He noted that he and GM Rob Hennigan hit it off immediately because they think similarly in the practice of building a consensus among the group in terms of decision-making.

``My confidence level picked up speed as the process went along,’’ said Vogel, who talked on the phone with Hennigan for some two hours before meeting the DeVos ownership family, Martins and Hennigan in Grand Rapids, Mich., early last week. ``I was comfortable in the first 15 minutes and then when we were an hour into it I was really excited. Then, once we got two hours into it, it was feeling like, `this is the spot for me.’ It was that accelerated and that quick.’’

Orlando is one of just five NBA teams to improve its record each of the last three years, and the Magic finished 35-47 this past season for a 10-win improvement. Vogel sees the Magic being on the same trajectory as the one he coached in Indianapolis when the Pacers went from 37 wins in 2010-11 to 49 in 2012-13 and 56 in 2013-14.

With a solid, young core of Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon, Elfrid Payton, Mario Hezonja, Fournier and Oladipo, Vogel sees now reason why the Magic shouldn’t be looked as a team about to make a huge jump next season.

``The roster here was very, very attractive to me,’’ he said. ``I really see a lot of similarities to this team that I saw with the team that we took over in Indiana. That team had Lance Stephenson, Paul George and Roy Hibbert and it was still trying to find its way to get over that hump, but it then became a monster in the East. I see that similarity there.’’

Vogel also likes that the Magic have been judicious in their spending in recent years, meaning the team has flexibility with which to pursue free agents this offseason. Orlando could potentially have as much as $45 million in cap space with which to offer free agents. That’s a good thing because Vogel sees one area in particular where the Magic certainly could use an upgrade for the style that he wants to play with rugged defense and an up-tempo offense.

``We need tough guys who are leaders,’’ he said bluntly. ``Bringing in a guy who has a presence about him that younger players will respect, both with his voice and his approach and his ability to kick some tail on the court, that’s important. We’ll be looking for that guy who has the experience who can lead in the locker room and with his play as well.’’

Vogel and wife, Jennifer, have 12- and 10-year-old daughters, and the temptation was there for him to take a year off from coaching to have more family time. But the Magic job was too good to pass up, Vogel said, because it ``checked all the boxes’’ for him.

Knowing that he will be working with a talented roster and for an ownership and a management group that supports him also brought a great sense of relief for Vogel. Scheduled to be back in Orlando on Wednesday after a short return trip back to Indiana, Vogel said he can’t wait to start building a coaching staff, building relationships with the players on the roster and setting the stage for the Magic to win big next season.

``It’s been a really crazy time – probably the craziest two weeks of my life just from the emotions of being let go by the Pacers to figuring out what the next step was,’’ Vogel said. ``But the phone was ringing and that was a good thing. It was a good kind of chaos and I enjoyed meeting with some of the other teams that I met with.

``Ultimately, finding this situation here and everything aligning for what I was looking for with my family and my career, that part of it made it an enjoyable time as opposed to a stressful time,’’ he added. ``Knowing that I was going to have a job like this was one of the options and then getting it was a very exciting thing for me. So we’re excited to be down here.’’

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Frank Vogel: "We're Going to Win"

orlasantiago

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8 Logros de Frank Vogel Como Técnico Desde el 2011

ORLANDO – In today’s world, there are dreamers and there are doers, but rarely are they one in the same. Many have the passion, but few couple it with the persistence and dedication needed to turn their dreams into reality.

Having a big, toothy smile and a perpetually positive disposition can sometimes help, too, when those dreams fizzle and it looks like they will never materialize.

New Orlando Magic coach Fran Vogel is living, X-and-O-ing proof that dreams come true as long as you are willing to make sacrifices, remain persistent and positive and put in hour upon hour of tireless work.

Some 22 years ago, Vogel gave up his college basketball playing career at Division III Juniata College (Pa.), packed everything he owned into a beat-up old clunker of a car for an 11-hour drive and talked his way into a miniscule role with the University of Kentucky’s monolithic basketball program.

Intrigued and obsessed with the dashing coaching style of then-Kentucky mentor Rick Pitino – someone he had briefly met at a Five-Star basketball camp years earlier – Vogel showed up unannounced on the UK campus in Lexington, Ky., in 1994 looking to somehow, someway be a part of one of college basketball’s most storied programs.

It didn’t matter what it took, Vogel was going to get Pitino to notice him – even if it took him three weeks of being on campus before he summoned the nerve to approach his coaching hero face-to-face. If it meant mopping up sweat off the floor, washing and folding towels or even stretching the truth a little bit to put himself in a position to pour over hours of monotonous video tape, Vogel was determined to do whatever it took to jump-start his coaching career and learn at the feet of Pitino.

``I knew once I got my foot in the door (there at Kentucky) that my work ethic, my personality, my character – all of that stuff would shine and I’d be able to show it,’’ Voegel recalled. ``So I basically set up shop down there at (Kentucky’s) Memorial Coliseum and said, `Hey, I’ve got a room over there at the dorm in Wildcat Lodge, but I’m not going to be there very much. I’m going to be over here at the gym.’^’’

Fast forward to today, when Vogel has become one of the most highly regarded coaches in the NBA, and the work ethic and positive approach remain. His rise is an unlikely one, but his success is not because he’s always been a driven and focused person determined to make his dreams a reality.

The Magic saw the passion and perfection that Vogel brought to the job and they jumped at the chance to hire the 42-year-old native of South Jersey to be their next coach on Friday. As devastated as the franchise was on May 12 when Scott Skiles resigned as head coach following just one season on the bench in Orlando, the Magic are even more elated with the appointment of Vogel as their next coach.

Orlando is confident that the persuasiveness and positivity of Vogel will mesh well with a young roster and help the franchise get back into the postseason for the first time in four years. That playoffs-or-bust mentality is not one that Vogel shies away from – not that that’s necessarily surprising considering his don’t-take-no approach to getting into coaching more than two decades ago.

``That’s what this group is about and a big part of what attracted me to this job is the feeling that this group is ready,’’ Vogel said of Orlando’s playoff push. ``It’s not just the talent, but it’s the stages of their careers that the core is in. This group is ready to make that next jump. My intention is to come in and make this happen for this group right away and make that jump (to the playoffs) this year. This is going to be a season about being on a mission and winning a lot of games.’’

Vogel has been a man on a mission ever since he made that 11-hour car ride from Huntingdon, Pa., to Lexington, Ky., back in 1994 to pursue his coaching dreams. Upon first showing up at Kentucky’s practice facilities, he was initially turned away and considered just another in a long line of the fanboys who wanted to enjoy the warm glow of one of college basketball’s elite programs.

Little did those UK staffers know it at the time, but Vogel wouldn’t take no for an answer.

In many ways, he was the Rudy Ruettiger of college basketball what with his unlikely background and starry-eyed dreams of going from wiping up sweat to becoming a big-time basketball coach someday.

Always smiling, quick to offer up an introduction and a daily regular around the University of Kentucky’s practice facility, Vogel talked his way into being a student-manager for the Wildcats. He was used as a practice player and he was even a member of the school’s Junior Varsity squad – something that Pitino started back up – all the while studying the ways of the coach he had idolized for year. Whereas some saw Vogel simply living out some sort of childhood fantasy, he viewed it as a coaching reconnaissance mission to learn from the best of the best.

Before he ever approached Pitino about joining the staff he met associate head coach Jim O’Brien – a meeting that would go on to shape his basketball life much more than he realized it at the time. After pleading with O’Brien for a job of any kind, the assistant coach asked Vogel if he knew anything about computers and video editing equipment. Quite frankly, he didn’t, but that didn’t deter Vogel from accepting the challenge as long as it meant being a part of Pitino’s coaching staff at Kentucky.

``I had a persistent mindset that I was going to make something happen for myself,’’ Vogel recalled. ``Obviously, it’s so tough to get into the business when you don’t know anybody or have any prior experience, but for me it was about an initial connection and that’s where my persistence and energy lie – in that initial connection. I didn’t beg for an opportunity, but I showed them that I could be an asset and that I could be counted upon.

``I was able to make that connection first with Jim O’Brien at Kentucky and then furthering it Rick when he talked about bringing me onboard,’’ Vogel continued.

Vogel, a two-year student manager who ultimately got a biology degree, was on the Kentucky bench when it won the 1996 National Championship. And when Pitino left to become the head coach of the Boston Celtics in 1997, he made the decision to take Vogel with him as his video coordinator.

Just three years after leaving Juniata College and heading to Kentucky without knowing a soul there, a then 24-year-old Vogel found himself in the NBA and a part of one of the most storied franchises in all of sports.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of 12-to-15-hour days passed with Vogel pouring over video tape and he was happy to do it. When O’Brien replaced Pitino as Celtics coach in 2001, he promoted Vogel to assistant coach. That would start the ball rolling on a professional coaching career that would earn him other assistant jobs with the Philadelphia 76ers and Indiana Pacers.

Along the way, Vogel realized that sometimes reality can exceed the dream. Never in his wildest dreams did Vogel think that he would someday be coaching in the NBA, much less pursued by multiple franchises when he hit the market this month as the most qualified candidate available.

``I was just thankful to be a student manager, and if that led to a high school coaching job or maybe I could stick at a small Division I school as an assistant, that would have been a success for me,’’ Vogel said. ``The NBA? Never in my wildest dreams when I was playing in Division III basketball.’’

When Pacers president Larry Bird phoned him in 2011 and told him that he was firing O’Brien as head coach and wanted him to take over as head coach, Vogel was equal parts hurt and stunned. He said he’ll always consider O’Brien ``family’’ because of everything that he did for him in helping him become a coach. At the urging of O’Brien, Vogel took the Pacers job and he was an instant success because of the way the players there responded to his encouraging style.

He won seven of his first eight games and the Pacers finished strong enough to get the franchise into the playoffs for the first time in four years. Two trips to the Eastern Conference Finals, 250 regular-season wins and 31 playoff victories followed, making Vogel the most successful coach in Pacers history.

The work ethic he learned as a do-anything student-manager and a hidden-away video coordinator is still there today even though he’s reached the dream of being a head coach. He always arrives at the office four hours before practice to fully familiarize himself with the next opponent and prepare for that day’s session. After games, he’s been known to re-watch them one and two times again – win or lose.

He is here today – as the coach expected to shape Orlando’s young roster and get this franchise back in contention for a NBA title – because of that bold step he made in leaving college and heading off to the University of Kentucky to jump-start his career. He still talks to Pitino and O’Brien now, and he invited Pitino and his family to Indianapolis earlier this year when two of Pitino’s prodigies – Billy Donovan and Vogel – squared off on the sideline.

Vogel said he somewhat accidentally picked up a powerful message from Pitino that has shaped his style of coaching. It is a style that he will use in Orlando to hopefully get the most out of the Magic’s players.

``One of the hidden benefits of me being a student manager at Kentucky was me having the responsibility of driving Rick Pitino to his motivational speaking engagements,’’ Vogel recalled. ``As I’d drive him, listen to his conversations about the book that he was writing at the time and watch him speak I learned a lot. I learned a lot about the power belief and instilling confidence in people and doing it in a positive way.

``(The positivity) fits my personality because that’s who I am as a person,’’ he added. ``Being around a coach like Rick (Pitino), it taught me that a player is going to be at his best when he believes in himself and when he’s shown confidence from his head coach. So I really believe in that style and it’s a big part of what we’ve accomplished in (coaching).’’

Vogel was once a dreamer and a doer, making his wishes of becoming a head coach a reality through his work ethic and persistence. One other dream still exists and he’s vowing to do everything in his power to make it a reality, too, in Orlando.

``I’ve had some individual success along the way, but my dream is still to win a NBA championship,’’ he stressed. ``My whole life is centered around my family and my pursuit of that professional excellence. I feel like this is a good situation with the Magic to be in and fulfill that pursuit.’’

People around the NBA would be wise not to doubt Vogel. After all, he has a knack for finding a way to make his dreams come true.

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Frank Vogel Made Rapid Rise Up Coaching Ladder

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8 Frank Vogel Coaching Accomplishments Since 2011

Dan Savage

ORLANDO – The Orlando Magic have named Frank Vogel head coach, General Manager Rob Hennigan announced today. Vogel becomes the 13th head coach in franchise history.

During his five-plus seasons as a head coach with Indiana from 2011-16, Vogel, 42, guided the Pacers to the NBA Playoffs five times, two Central Division championships and two trips to the Eastern Conference Finals. He has an overall NBA regular season head coaching record of 250-181 (.580). His 250 wins are the most for a Pacers head coach in the team’s NBA history.

“While we were conducting our search, it became very evident that Frank (Vogel) is a terrific fit for our organization,” said Hennigan. “He is a strong, hard-working and experienced leader, who will continue to instill smart, physical, unselfish and defensive-minded basketball in our group. We welcome him into the Magic family, as we move forward in a positive direction.”

“In Frank (Vogel), we feel we have someone with tremendous perseverance, character and great balance,” said Orlando Magic CEO Alex Martins. “He is an effective communicator, who brings a wealth of strategic and postseason experience, and is someone who is incredibly excited to embrace the journey ahead. We are excited to welcome Frank and his wonderful family to our Magic family.”

On Jan. 30, 2011, Vogel took over for Jim O’Brien and led Indiana to a 20-18 record and its first playoff berth in four seasons. After falling to Chicago, the team with the NBA’s best regular season record, during the First Round of the playoffs, 4-1, he had his interim tag removed on July 6, 2011.

During the 2011-12 season, Vogel guided the Pacers to a 42-24 record (.636), the fifth-best record in the NBA, and finished third in voting for NBA Coach of the Year. During the playoffs, the Pacers defeated Orlando during the First Round, 4-1, before falling to eventual NBA Champion Miami in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, 4-2.
In 2012-13, Indiana went 49-32 (.605) and captured the Central Division title for the first time since 2003-04. During the postseason, the Pacers defeated Atlanta (4-2) and New York (4-2) to reach the Eastern Conference Finals, where they lost in seven games to Miami, who again went on to win the NBA title.

During the 2013-14 campaign, Indiana spent most of the regular season with the best record in the NBA. The Pacers finished with a regular season record of 56-26 (.683), won their second straight Central Division crown and was the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference during the NBA Playoffs. The 56 wins were the third-most in the franchise’s NBA history. Indiana beat Atlanta (4-3) and Washington (4-2), before losing again to Miami during the Eastern Conference Finals, 4-2. Vogel and his staff also earned coaching honors for the East during the 2014 NBA All-Star Game.

After failing to make the postseason in 2014-15, mostly due to a team ravaged by injuries (including the 76 games missed by NBA All-Star Paul George), Vogel and Indiana rebounded last season and posted a 45-37 record (.549). He was named the NBA’s Eastern Conference Coach of the Month for the fourth time during his career in April 2016, after the Pacers went 6-1 during the month and secured the seventh seed in the East. Indiana lost to Toronto during the First Round in a tough series that went seven games.

Vogel, who is entering his 20th season in the NBA, began his NBA career as the head video coordinator with Boston under Rick Pitino. He stayed in that role from 1997-2001, before being named an assistant coach with the Celtics under O’Brien. Vogel was also as an assistant coach under O’Brien in Philadelphia in 2004-05 and in Indiana for three-plus seasons (2007-11). He also served as an advanced scout for the Los Angeles Lakers (2005-06) and Washington (2006-07).

Vogel is a graduate of the University of Kentucky with a degree in biology. He first attended Juniata College in Huntington, Pa., where he was a three-year starter for the Division III Eagles. While at Juniata, he made a decision that changed his life. An admirer of Pitino, who was the head coach at Kentucky, Vogel wanted to learn about coaching from Pitino. He made numerous requests to get to Kentucky as a walk-on, a student manager, anything. He finally got through to Jim O'Brien, an assistant to Pitino, who saw to it that Vogel became a student manager, even though the Wildcats preferred in-state students for that job. He then transferred to Kentucky, became a student manager and played on the junior varsity team in 1996.

After graduation, Vogel’s work ethic landed him the job as the University of Kentucky's video coordinator. Pitino left Kentucky to become head coach of the Boston Celtics and took Vogel with him as the head video coordinator.

As a youth, Vogel attended basketball camps and encountered an instructor who taught him if he believed in something and put his mind to it, he could accomplish anything. The instructor used spinning a basketball on his finger as an example and then spun it on a toothbrush. Vogel practiced the same trick until he, too, accomplished it and brushed his teeth with the toothbrush while spinning the basketball on the end of it. That skill earned him, as a 13-year-old, a national television appearance on "Late Night With David Letterman" in the Stupid Human Tricks segment. It was forbearer of the perseverance that has made Vogel one of the rising young stars in coaching.

Vogel and his wife, Jenifer, have two daughters, Alexa and Arianna.

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Magic Name Frank Vogel Head Coach

ORLANDO – Little did they know it at the time, but the heart and fight that the Orlando Magic displayed back on March 31 in a stirring defeat of the Indiana Pacers would go a long way in determining their next head coach nearly two months later.

Though he said that it was ``everything about the job’’ that ultimately convinced him to become the Magic’s next head coach, Vogel pointed to Orlando’s 114-94 throttling of the Pacers late in the season as a sign that the franchise had a tremendously bright future.

It’s a future that Vogel wanted to be a part of in Orlando.

``You could just see (the Magic’s) athleticism, shot-making and togetherness and it was all coming together for them. We knew that was going to be a tough game that night and it was because they kicked our tails,’’ remembered Vogel, the coach of the Pacers at the time. ``How they played down the stretch made me believe that this team is ready to make a big jump.’’

Vogel, 42, hopes to be a driving force in helping the Magic make that big jump in the years ahead, agreeing to become Orlando’s next head coach on Thursday. His appointment became official on Friday and he can’t wait to get started coaching a Magic team that he feels has all of the talent and experience needed to be in the postseason as early as next spring.

``That’s what this group is about and a big part of what attracted me to this job is the feeling that this group is ready,’’ Vogel said of Orlando’s young core of players. ``It’s not just the talent, but it’s the stages of their careers that the core is in. This group is ready to make that next jump. My intention is to come in and make this happen for this group right away and make that jump (to the playoffs) this year. This is going to be a season about being on a mission and winning a lot of games.’’

Vogel helped the Magic pick up the pieces after they were stunned by the abrupt resignation of Scott Skiles as head coach last Thursday following just one season on Orlando’s bench. Vogel, who led the Pacers to five playoff appearances in the past 5 ½ seasons, was Orlando’s top target and CEO Alex Martins and GM Rob Hennigan acted swiftly and boldly in securing the man many consider to be the best coaching candidate on the market.

``While we were conducting our search, it became very evident that Frank is a terrific fit for our organization,’’ Hennigan said. ``He is a strong, hard-working and experienced leader, who will continue to instill smart, physical, unselfish and defensive-minded basketball in our group. We welcome him into the Magic family, as we move forward in a positive direction.’’

Added Martins: ``In Frank, we feel we have someone with tremendous perseverance, character and great balance. He is an effective communicator, who brings a wealth of strategic and postseason experience, and is someone who is incredibly excited to embrace the journey ahead. We are excited to welcome Frank and his wonderful family to our Magic family.’’

The owner of a 250-181 career regular-season record and a 31-30 mark in the playoffs, Vogel had his choice of jobs after his contract wasn’t renewed by Pacers President Larry Bird on May 5. Vogel reportedly interviewed with the Memphis Grizzlies, New York Knicks and Houston Rockets, but he ultimately chose the Magic because of a confluence of factors.

He said his quick bond with Hennigan, the Magic’s blossoming talent base and Orlando market size that reminded him of what he had been a part of the past nine years in Indianapolis as an assistant and a head coach led him to Orlando.

``They were as aggressive as you can be,’’ Vogel said of the Magic. ``They were picking up the pieces, so to speak, from the (Skiles’) resignation and they reached out to me and my representatives right away. There was some interest with me from other teams and (the Magic) really accelerated the entire process. They got the ball rolling right away.

``The simplest answer is that it was everything about the job,’’ said Vogel, referring to what the Magic had to offer. ``Starting with the roster and the young talent that they have and the readiness of the group, they’re not too young and they have a number of core guys who are entering their primes. That’s a dream for a coach and I just like the ability and potential of the roster.’’

Hennigan and Vogel joked about the fact that their separate rises to the NBA shared a common thread. Hennigan grew up in suburban Boston and played basketball at tiny Emerson College before breaking into the NBA as an intern and later as a scout. Vogel, a native of Wildwood Crest, N.J., played Division III basketball at Juniata College (Pa.) before transferring to the University of Kentucky so that he could be a student manager and video coordinator under Rick Pitino and Jim O’Brien. Those coaches took him along to the NBA where he worked as a video coordinator and later an assistant coach with the Celtics, 76ers and Pacers. In 2011, he took over as an interim head coach with the Pacers and he’s been a success in that role ever since.

``I felt like I had an immediate connection with Rob Hennigan, and once we spoke we realized that we were both in Boston during the same time,’’ Vogel said. ``We shared a common thread in terms of our leadership styles and the idea of organizational togetherness. Alex Martins was great, (Assistant GM) Scott Perry was great and the reputation of the DeVos family is unparalleled.’’

Vogel made his name in the NBA as a coach who has a tremendous understanding of how to develop strong defensive teams. In Indiana, his last five teams all finished in the NBA’s top-six in field-goal percentage allowed and all six of his teams were top-10 in total defensive efficiency.

Orlando made major strides in that department this past season en route to a promising 19-13 start. However, Orlando’s commitment on the defensive end of the floor dropped off at the start of 2016, leading to a disappointing 2-15 stretch in January and early February and a 16-34 finish that kept it out of the playoffs for a fourth straight year.

``I certainly believe in what we teach on the defensive end and our approach, but it’s got to come from our players, come from within and they’ve got to want it,’’ said Vogel, whose seventh-seeded Pacers pushed the second-seeded Toronto Raptors to a Game 7 in the first round of the playoffs before losing. ``We’ve had guys on our roster in Indianapolis who have enjoyed that (defensive) end of the floor. You want to make them enjoy (defense), enjoy the hard work and the reward in getting stop after stop after stop when your shots aren’t falling. We’ll do that (in Orlando) because I have confidence that this team has great athleticism and good speed and I believe that I can mold them into one of the better defensive units in the league.’’

One of the knocks on Vogel in Indiana was that his teams tended to play slow-down, grind-it-out offense. Bird wanted the Pacers playing faster and they did that this past season, going from 27th in the NBA to 12th in fastbreak points. Still, the Pacers ranked 24th and 23rd in offensive efficiency the past two seasons.

Playing fast shouldn’t be a problem in Orlando, Vogel said, because he wants to take advantage of the speed and athleticism of young players such as Aaron Gordon, Evan Fournier, Victor Oladipo, Elfrid Payton and Mario Hezonja. Vogel said he will happily adjust his style to fit the personnel in Orlando and he wants the Magic playing up-tempo basketball next season.

``I think this Magic team has really good speed and we can do it even better than we did in Indianapolis,’’ Vogel said. ``I think Aaron Gordon’s ability to play at the power forward position in today’s game gives you four guys who can push it and run and that’s incredibly valuable. That’s not even mentioning what Vic can do and what Elfrid can do. Evan can run and Hezonja’s ability to run the floor and have that electricity when he attacks the basket and finishes – I think this could be an exceptional running team and that’s the style that we’re going to play.

``We grinded it out a couple of years there in Indianapolis because that’s what the personnel dictated and the style of play that group needed to play with,’’ continued Vogel, who twice guided Indy teams to the Eastern Conference Finals. ``But I believe that this game is meant to be played in attack mode. And I really believe we have the speed and athleticism to do that with this (Magic) group.’’

On his way out of Indiana, Vogel was lauded by superstar small forward Paul George, who called the coach ``one of the most influential men in my life’’ in a post on Instagram that included a picture of the two of them arm-in-arm along the sidelines. Known for his big, toothy smile and his perpetually upbeat approach, Vogel said the power of positivity shapes much of his coaching approach. He’ll stay the same in Orlando, and he stressed that he’s extremely positive that the marriage between he and the Magic will be a great one for all involved.

``(The positivity) fits my personality because that’s who I am as a person,’’ Vogel said. ``Being around a coach like Rick (Pitino), it taught me that a player is going to be at his best when he believes in himself and when he’s shown confidence from his head coach. So I really believe in that style and it’s a big part of what we’ve accomplished in Indianapolis.

``When I researched Mr. (Rich) DeVos a little bit I saw that he had a book, ``Believe’’ and another book called ``Powerful Phrases of Positive People,’’ and that was just kind of like a sign for me,’’ Vogel continued. ``I feel like this is a situation that I was meant to be a part of. That’s definitely always been my approach and what I believe in.’’

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Frank Vogel Excited to Coach Magic's Promising Young Core

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