Orlando Magic Reportedly Fire Frank Vogel
You could see this one coming, despite thinking Frank Vogel is a really good head coach. The fact is Vogel had a bad record and worked this season for an executive that didn’t hire him. It’s one of the simplest ways to see a firing coming. Throw in the fact the Magic never really did much to their roster to improve and it’s easy for a front office guy to get rid of the head coach and say that he wants to bring in one of his own.
Orlando is in a real tough spot though. They don’t have a ton of cap space unless one drastic thing happens. That’s letting Aaron Gordon, arguably the best player on the roster, walk this summer when he’s a restricted free agent. The Magic already have $17 million going out to both Evan Fournier and Bismack Biyombo next season. By letting Gordon walk there should be a decent amount of cap space for the Magic to work with, but it’s still a long rebuild.
The biggest problem for the Magic so far has been the fact they’ve missed in the Draft to date. This past season they took Jonathan Isaac, who may turn out to be a fine player, but didn’t really do much this year as he only played in 27 games due to injury. They traded away Domatas Sabonis. Mario Hezojna never lived up to the hype of the No. 5 pick. They traded Kyle O’Quinn. They traded Victor Oladipo. All in all it’s just been a complete mismanagement from the front office on the young talent on the roster and that’s how you get to this point.
Now, for Vogel. He should get a coaching job again and it should come this offseason. He’s still wildly respected for his time at Indiana and does have a good reputation around the league. He went 250-181 from 2011-16 when he was at Indiana. Don’t be surprised to see his name linked to a lot of jobs this offseason, especially if there’s a team that was in the playoffs or ready to compete that gets rid of their coach.