Trust, fit was the issue for Jacque Vaughn

Jacque Vaughn was put in a bad circumstance. Ultimately, it was the deterioration of trust inside that cost him his job. Vaughn was not getting the job done.

For Gregg Popovich, the idea is pretty simple when it comes to Jacque Vaughn.

Here is one of his brightest, young pupils put into a difficult circumstance. Under different circumstances, Vaughn’s style of coaching could surely work. The Magic had to see something when they hired him to make them believe he would grow with the team and be the long-term answer.

The fact is, that it did not. Orlando struggled to find consistency in the team’s third year of this rebuild and struggled to define roles, define identity and define who is actually going to be part of the future of this organization. That included the coach.

Popovich has no doubt that Vaughn could succeed when given the right opportunity, as he told Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express News before Wednesday’s game, what turned out to be Vaughn’s last. Vaughn will probably do better in his second job with the experience he has gained in this job and a likely second stint as an assistant coach (probably with the Spurs).

That does not mean much for his first coaching job. He has not been put in a great circumstance — plopped down in the middle of a complete rebuild with a roster devoid of many ready-to-contribute veterans and full of young players finding their way in the league.

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Still, all you can do is take advantage of the circumstances you are presented in life. Vaughn has had a strange opportunity, but with the charge of turning the corner and continuing to show improvement he did not deliver. The frustration with how this season has gone was clear when Magic CEO Alex Martins and general manager Rob Hennigan faced the media in the wake of their decision to let Vaughn go.

That is the part that has been the struggle so far this season. And things, before Monday and Wednesday’s games, seemed to be getting worse.

During this stretch, the Magic have looked lost and out of sync, to put it nicely. The team is getting off to slow starts and failing to play with consistent fire. Rob Hennigan has spoken about the team lacking a “competitive spirit” since his mid-season interview. He repeated that line in the press conference today.

Ultimately, what cost Jacque Vaughn his job was that his players lost trust in him.

This is not necessarily saying players stopped playing hard or “gave up” on their head coach. The Magic have collected a group of players who play hard and try to do things the right way. Even after Saturday’s struggle of a game, Channing Frye extolled his teammates’ ability to do the right things. The corner was there to be turned.

They just could not get there. Not with the current leadership.

As Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders tells it last week during the height of the rumors of the last week and a half, Vaughn’s fate was sealed when the team lost trust in what the team was doing.

"This season was supposed to be different. This was the year the young horses were supposed to run and really get a chance to challenge. However, from the start of training camp there was a sense that many things were not right. Some of the veterans that were brought in to support the young guys questioned some of the ideas being executed in training camp and in the preseason. That spread to some of the younger guys.After two straight seasons of losing, there was doubt in the room and that didn’t go away. There was doubt that the decisions being made on the floor were in the best interest of winning.The group didn’t have the confidence in Vaughn for many reasons, but the biggest is he had not earned it. There were games he played with guy’s minutes; there were accusations made about effort and roles before the first regular season game was even played."

This is why, despite the benefits in Draft position for tanking, tanking becomes a very bad idea. At least institutional tanking. The Magic do not have the talent to be considered legitimate Playoff contenders until they prove otherwise.

Still the Magic needed to turn the corner. Everyone throughout the franchise sensed that it was time. Everyone was hungry to do so.

And it just did not happen. The team’s play was uneven. Players who figured to be part of the franchise’s future were sent to the bench in favor of veterans with mixed results on the floor. Rookies and young players were held back.

Vaughn failed to manage the mix between taking that next step and continuing to develop the players on the roster. That was his task for the season. The delicate task he could not complete.

But the Magic, as they have been throughout the entire rebuild, were not about the here and the now. Making or missing the Playoffs was irrelevant. What was important was improvement overall and that the team was taking a step forward. That would be Vaughn’s affirmation for a fourth year.

Orlando did not take that step. His team began growing frustrated and questioning the tactics he used to get there. Maybe Vaughn did not have the same trust in his team that they had in themselves or that fans seemed to have. Maybe Vaughn was truly trying to win games now and things simply backfired on him — the Channing Frye signing has certainly backfired on Rob Hennigan.

It was a difficult ask for Vaughn to do. It always was.

Still, Vaughn had goals to accomplish. Achievable goals. Improvement is nebulous enough that even wins and losses were not necessarily relevant.

The Magic were not getting where they needed to be this season. Ultimately, the question is who do the Magic trust to finish the job, both up top and in the locker room?

It was clear that trust had eroded within the franchise. Vaughn was not getting the most of his charges, and the season was not turning around.

Next: The Magic fired Jacque Vaughn so they could get back on track