Orlando Magic Offseason Manifesto: The Frank Vogel Decision

The Orlando Magic concluded another disappointing season 25-57 record. The first decision that Orlando made this offseason was to dismiss Frank Vogel.

When new president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman was hired last May, many wondered whether or not he would decide to retain the services of coach Frank Vogel. The belief going around was the team, after just one year of Vogel, was not in favor of changing coaches again and paying off the rest of his contract.

Weltman came aboard and kept Vogel for the 2018 season. And the Magic began what was deemed as an “evaluation” season.

Based purely on the record, one would surmise Vogel did not do too well in his evaluation. Vogel posted only 25 wins this season, which is Orlando’s worst record since 2015. Not that the Magic have had many “good” records since this rebuild began in 2013.

And indeed, the Magic decided to dismiss Vogel. The first of likely many moves this offseason to change the team.

But there is a lot more to this story than just pure wins and losses. Vogel inherited a roster that just never had a chance to get it done.

Orlando has sunk one-third of its salary cap into two centers who are not near starting-caliber players. They started the year with one of the worst defensive point guards in the NBA and on top of that, Orlando lost 227 games to injury this season.

You can argue a good coach can work around these problems and you might be right. But the Magic are a team that was flawed by roster composition.

The team lacks perimeter shooting. Only Evan Fournier, Marreese Speights and D.J. Augustin took more than 200 3-pointers and managed to shoot better than 35 percent. Jonathon Simmons, Aaron Gordon, Nikola Vucevic and Mario Hezonja all shot more than 200 3-pointers. None of them finished shooting better than 34 percent from behind the line.

Even Vogel admitted after the season finding more shooting is part of this team’s continuing offensive evolution.

Additionally, it has become clear most of, if not all of the young players acquired during the former general manager Rob Hennigan’s tenure have become permanently stained by a losing culture.

The most egregious example being Nikola Vucevic who somehow managed to skate through another season as Orlando’s starting center while getting carved up in the pick and roll on a constant basis — giving up 1.20 points per possession in pick and rolls to the roll man.

The Hennigan era young players stick out like a sore thumb when watching the team’s current games.

They are always the guys who force bad shots when games are close. They are always the guys who do not want to make the extra pass. And they are always the guys who stare at their teammates when it was their defensive breakdown.

It is absolutely no coincidence Orlando’s best defensive players this season were Wesley Iwundu, Jonathan Isaac, Shelvin Mack and Khem Birch. All four of these guys were new players who excelled this year. In Wesley Iwundu and Khem Birch’s cases, their improvement came throughout the year. Shelvin Mack was just flat out solid all season for the Magic.

Did Vogel not deserve any credit for those players?

Sure, you could argue that Vogel did not play Birch much after Vucevic came back from injury. But what did you expect? Money talks in this league.

The Magic could not reasonably sit a guy that they would likely want to trade this offseason and expect to get anything back this summer. Though, if we are being entirely honest Vucevic did not really help his value much after he came back. He averaged just 15.2 points per game on 45.0 percent shooting after the All-Star Break.

Some may suggest sitting Bismack Biyombo, but that is unrealistic. That contract is already an utter disaster. The Magic simply need him on the floor in order to try and gain any leverage they can if they decide to swap Bismack Biyombo for another bad contract.

Did Vogel have problems? Absolutely.

He is too slow to make changes that are obvious to the casual NBA observer. Most observers knew a lineup of Elfrid Payton, Jonathon Simmons, Evan Fournier, Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic would never work. That lineup has way too many guys who want the ball in their hands in addition to its horrendous defense — a 120.0 defensive rating in 198 minutes.

Did Vogel stick too long with lineups that are getting run off the floor? Absolutely.

Vogel did not like to change things up without careful study. His substitution patterns were so predictable, you could write them down before the game and have a 99 percent accuracy. Changes happened gradually rather than in the moment.

There are plenty of reasons why the Magic decided to move on from Vogel but it will not address the bigger issue that plagues the team.

The Magic have a serious culture issue. Additionally, this team complements each other’s skills in horrendous fashion.

Too many guys on the Magic feel entitled to playing time and the Magic do not have the depth (especially with injuries) to prove them wrong.

Moving on from Vogel will not fix this problem for the Magic. And in all reality, if the Magic do not decide to move on from these cancerous players that landed them in this situation the next coach of the Orlando Magic will not do any better.

Next: Orlando Magic sending off season to uncertain future

So, the offseason has started. Vogel is gone but what does that really do for Orlando? I would suggest that it does not do much without conducting a large scale purge on the roster.