Well there you have it. The first domino in the Lakers offseason has fallen and its name is Frank Vogel. Yes this is the same Frank Vogel that coached an Orlando Magic team to back to back sub 30 win seasons only for them to make the playoffs in the year immediately following his firing. Now yes, before the Magic, Vogel had a successful stint in Indiana and it was these playoff battles with the big three in Miami which have lead to a level of respect between Coach Vogel and Lebron James. Respect which he will certainly need if he is to survive in his new role in LA.
This hiring has come as a shock to seemingly everybody involved with the league. With Monty Williams taken off the board by Phoenix and Ty Lue turning down an offer, which its unlikely LA ever wanted him to accept, there’s no doubt they were running out of options. But this, really? I heard the Jason Garrett theory being thrown around and I guess that makes sense. Like Garrett, Vogel is an inoffensive guy that you can see making a decent mouthpiece for an organisation secretly being run from elsewhere *cough*Kurt Rambis*cough*. We shall see, but in the short term lets see if the Lakers can avoid adding anymore complicated pieces to the situation….
I guess not. Everybody knows the first thing you do to back your new head coach is force a guy into his coaching team. Right? So if you thought this whole thing couldn’t get any weirder you were wrong. The Lakers missed on their first choice so instead ended up with both there 5th and 6th. Maybe there new analytics I’m not aware of that can take those numbers and turn them into anything other than the start of a likely meltdown in LA. Once a few losses start piling up the fingers will start pointing and it will get ugly real fast. With at least 2 guys (3 if you count LeBron) thinking they should be in charge what could possibly go wrong.
Best case scenario now is the Lakers land a big time free agent or two and then probably none of this matters as LeBron paired with Kawhi or Anthony Davis is enough basketball talent that you can likely stick me out there and win 50 games. Don’t make any roster changes and well, expect a lot of passive aggressive tweets, media leaks and maybe an all out mutiny or two. Either way, next season should be fun in Hollywood.
Life's Too Sport 
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