Getty Los Angeles Lakers center DeAndre Jordan does an interview during the team's 2021 media day.
The Los Angeles Lakers have had more than their fair share of weirdness this season. From the Russell Westbrook situation to injuries to fans calling for Frank Vogel’s job, saying the team’s season has not played out as many expected would be a massive understatement.
While some would point to Westbrook as the biggest source of the Lakers’ ills, the center spot — or Vogel’s approach to it — has been equally eybrow raising.
At one point, Vogel was trotting out an aging DeAndre Jordan, whose days as a topflight defender and rim-roller are long behind him, as the starting five-man. And Jordan was just tapped to start again versus the Hornets amid injuries to LeBron James and Anthony Davis, an odd play given the year that he’s having.
The Lakers were subsequently outscored by 14 points in Jordan’s 20 minutes on the court — in a game they lost by just three points.
However, an NBA assistant who has known Vogel is of the belief that the Lakers coach ignored his own hoops sense and started the former Lob City big as a direct response to pressure from the Lakers’ front office.
“Oh, you had to know exactly what Frank was doing,” the assistant told Heavy.com’s Sean Deveney. “He does not want to play DeAndre Jordan, he can see what everyone else sees, he can see the numbers, he can study the film. But it is obvious that he is under pressure to play him from above so, ‘OK, I will play him. You want to see DeAndre Jordan, let’s see him.'”
As the assistant sees it, Vogel was attempting to show management the error of its ways.
“It is a kamikaze mission in a way. But if you’re a coach you want to be allowed to coach your team and he has not been allowed to coach this team the way he wants to. So he took Jordan and made him a starter. There is no way that is how he wanted to handle that game, but I think he had a point to make.”
Heavy Insiders Break Down Vogel’s Predicament
Deveney and Heavy.com’s NBA insider Steve Bulpett shared their thoughts on Vogel’s job situation and the Jordan play during a Saturday livestream. For his part, Deveney can get with the assistant’s story.
“The quote from the coach was, you know, Frank Vogel is now on a kamikaze mission, he is going to go down fighting and he is going to go down swinging and he doesn’t care at this point,” he said. “There was a report in the L.A. Times about 10 days ago that said Kurt Rambis had come in and sat in on one of the coaches meetings, a rare thing for a front office to do, and basically said, ‘You gotta start playing DeAndre Jordan more, we should be going big.'”
Deveney noted that Vogel clearly had better options for the Hornets game, even as the team was shorthanded, but went with Jordan anyway.
“Not only did Frank Vogel have DeAndre Jordan on the court, he had him starting, didn’t play Dwight Howard at all, and Dwight Howard has been a much better player this year,” he said.
“I think that’s Frank Vogel thumbing his nose and saying, ‘If you’re gonna fire me, let’s get this over with.’ It almost seemed like that’s what’s going on in L.A… When I look at something like Twitter and I see people say something like, ‘What is Vogel doing?’ And just talking with people around the league I think Vogel is saying, ‘You want DeAndre Jordan? Here you go. Let’s go.’ I can’t say I blame him for that.”
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Bulpett Sees Other Options for Vogel
As Bulpett sees it, Vogel isn’t in a spot where he needs the Lakers job or any other hoops gig in particular. He’s a made man in the game; and if Rob Pelinka and Co. won’t let him coach the way he wants to, he has no shortage of other options.
“Frank Vogel is not coaching for his job in the sense that he is desperate to keep a job. Frank Vogel is set,” Bulpett said. “He’s a very good basketball and a very good person. If he wants to stay involved in basketball, he is going to have no difficulty at all staying involved in basketball. If the Lakers want to fire him, so be it.”
One potential option: taking the reins of a big-time college program.
“He could have his pick of college jobs. Knowing Frank, his personality, he would be perfect for a college job as well, not that he wouldn’t be great in the pros. He has proven he can do it in the pros. No worries for Frank Vogel. He has his head together very well.”
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