Orlando Magic: Should they have fired Frank Vogel?

Less than 24 hours into their offseason, the Orlando Magic have fired head coach Frank Vogel. Now what?

In the end, the Orlando Magic didn’t do any hanging around with their plans for an offseason shake up. Less than a day after their final regular season game against the Washington Wizards, a rare win, the organization fired head coach Frank Vogel.

First reported by ESPN‘s Adrian Wojnarowski (who else?), the news signals the end of Vogel’s two years at the helm of the team — a period in which the Magic went 54-110 and were underwhelming to say the least. Their playoff drought has now also extended to six seasons.

Vogel was supposed to be the head coach who helped them turn a corner. He failed to do so, although, as we’ll see, that was not all his fault. In many ways though, the past two years have represented the worst stretch of the Magic’s prolonged rebuild for one key reason.

The hiring of Vogel at the time brought with it the hope that things could get better. Instead, the team is still in the same spot it was before it hired him. But was that reason enough to let him go?

Really, there are two glaring issues that contributed to Vogel getting canned as quickly as he did after the regular season ended. From roughly December through the end of March, most nights it just looked like the Magic players had no interest in playing for the man.

That changed somewhat to end the year, but we’ll come back to why that was. The level of disinterest was at times a slap in the face to fans.

The other real problem was how the team failed to improve defensively, despite looking like they had more tools than ever before to change this. During two of Vogel’s seasons with the Indiana Pacers, he got the team to the Eastern Conference Finals. Both years, they had the best defense in the league.

So coming to Orlando, the hope was that he could turn a team that had unsurprisingly been a bottom-10 outfit in this category for four straight years into something more. That did not happen, at all. In 2016-17, they ranked 24th defensively (108), and this season they finished 20th (107.7).

In truth, some late season returns from injury helped this number look better than it truly was. Really then, this was the biggest indication that it was time for a change with this team. The organization must also be commended for acting so swiftly.

The front office obviously didn’t like what it saw, and to start the offseason in this way shows an intent to really get better this summer.

The hope is to have a new head coach in place in time for the draft, who can then build around a core of their lottery pick (8.8 percent chance it is No. 1), Aaron Gordon and Jonathan Isaac.

But was this all a bit harsh on Vogel? In his short time with the team, he inherited a roster from former general manager Rob Hennigan that was a mess.

Orlando Magic

Even the great Phil Jackson or Gregg Popovich would have struggled to make something happen when saddled with the likes of Bismack Biyombo at $17 million a year.

At this point last season, Hennigan was still knocking around too — an uncomfortable thought. So to have to deal with him for a year couldn’t have been easy either.

Plus there’s no escaping the fact that injuries really played a significant part in the team being as bad as it was this season.

This is even more true when you consider how the team began to really improve defensively to close out the season. Was the tide turning for Vogel and this team?

We’ll never know now, but over the last 10 games of the season and with the Magic trying to tank, they ranked seventh defensively (101.8) in the league.

The return of Isaac from an injured-plagued rookie season coincided with this. The team had a defensive rating of 101.4 when he was on the floor. More than anything else, he looked like the perfect player to pair with a head coach like Vogel. We never got to see this partnership develop, but there was something there.

Isaac is likely going to be a defensive standout for a long time to come no matter who he is playing for, which is a comforting thought for Magic fans. But along with Khem Birch, another great find and feel-good story to their season, they were creating an identity defensively after years of being listless on the court.

That ends now with the firing of Vogel, and the team will have to start again. Whether the Magic buy into defending again or becoming more offensively oriented, only time will tell.

Another successful aspect of Vogel’s time with the team, albeit one which came too late, was the use of Mario Hezonja.

Again, this was as a result of injuries to the roster, but there’s no question Vogel got the best out of Hezonja. Former head coach Scott Skiles buried him on the bench, and he wasn’t much more effective under James Borrego.

This may end up backfiring as Hezonja is an unrestricted free agent this summer and has just put together a solid case to be picked up by somebody else.

He could even follow Vogel to his next destination, especially with the New York Knicks — a team Vogel felt he was going to coach before — looking for a new head coach themselves.

Really though, despite having their most complete roster for years in young guys like Gordon and Evan Fournier, as well as veteran voices like Jonathon Simmons and Marreese Speights, the team was bad.

There is a feeling that this was a panic move of sorts, but then again Vogel was never this front office’s guy to begin with.

The Magic have done well to clear out some of the deadwood and astutely select some young prospects, so we should give them every chance to nail their head coach selection.

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All we know for now is that Frank Vogel is gone, and the subdued response from fans and media members alike should tell you all you need to know about his tenure with the Orlando Magic.