Dwight Howard, Los Angeles Lakers have fired head coach Frank Vogel. The Hall of Fame’s future star who broke free from an unhealthy relationship with Los Angeles only to return two times as a fun-loving veteran player, played the Lakers all season, searching for the positives in everything.
Howard was asked on Monday whether the lowest point of the current season response was as grim as the question.
“Pretty much the whole season,” Howard stated, with the 49-loss Los Angeles Lakers surpassing even their most infamous fool.
There was no reason to be optimistic. The Los Angeles Lakers are closing out one of the worst seasons in the history of the team and NBA history.
The Los Angeles Lakers dismissed their coach, Frank Vogel, but only after they made him look embarrassed by allowing news to get out to an ESPN reporter who posted a tweet about it shortly before the end of the season’s final Sunday. Then, Vogel met with the general manager Rob Pelinka.
Pelinka did not speak with LeBron James regarding the decision. It was not announced until LeBron James was, Los Angeles Lakers superstar finished his departure interview on Monday morning.
When Pelinka spoke to the media at noon, the dismissal was finally declared official. He didn’t even express regrets that Vogel was informed of the decision through Twitter and was forced to discuss the issue at a tense post-game news conference.
“In terms of media reports that are speculative and unsourced, we don’t spend any of our time reacting to that type of information in terms of how we make decisions here,” Pelinka said.
He would not say what time the Los Angeles Lakers took their decision.
“Today’s not gonna be a day of like finger-pointing or unwinding all of the specific reasons,” Pelinka stated. “We simply felt that, organizationally at the highest levels it was time to find an entirely new voice. … This is not to diminish the amazing achievements that Frank Vogel’s achieved.”
During his rookie season, Vogel guided his way through the Los Angeles Lakers through the tribulations of the season that brought about pandemics and took home his 17th team championship within the NBA bubble. The following season, it was 42 wins, despite the injury to James and Anthony Davis but lost in the opening round of the playoffs.
However, this season’s injuries to their stars and the lack of execution and inability to create a cohesive team within a team boasting 4 of the NBA’s best players resulted in an unimaginable amount of inefficiency.
“He was a great coach here and he’s going to go on to be a great coach somewhere else,” Pelinka continued. “We just felt like it was time for a new leader.”
It was part of a day that affirmed how essential and even potentially tense this offseason is -it will be the Los Angeles Lakers having to find an assistant coach, figure the best way to fill James with talent, and confront a discontent Russell Westbrook, who admitted that he did not get an equal chance during his first year as a Laker.
Westbrook claimed the two of them Vogel has never been in contact — a situation that was only his the lawyer, he claimed.
“I never, from the get-go, was feeling like” we were on the same team, Westbrook said. “I had to work to demonstrate myself to him and my abilities and the things I’ve been able achieve in this game. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the opposite … the situation is sort of out of my control.”
However, people aware of the matter said there was a secret behind the scenes that Vogel was the most vocal fan of Westbrook in discussions about the under-performing Los Angeles Lakers and their top point guard. In contrast, staffers complained about Westbrook’s low performance and his inability to adapt to the new environment of James Davis and James Davis.
After the team was swapped to Westbrook, Davis and James frequently said they would like for them to be able to “Russ be Russ.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t true,” Westbrook declared.
He didn’t make an official decision on the player’s option for next season; even though the price at $47.1 million, it’s difficult to imagine the possibility of turning the offer down. James claimed it was too early to discuss an extension in the summer. However, Guard Kendrick Nunn was unable to play the entire season due to an injury to his knee and has announced he’d opt-in.
Malik Monk and Howard, both free agents, said they’d love to return also.
James is expected to require four to six weeks to recover from the ankle injury that caused him to miss all but one game later in the season. He also announced that he’d scheduled exams for his groin and knee. There was no other player who reported any injuries that are still lingering.
While James did not acknowledge his part in the development of the Los Angeles Lakers team, he did mention that the team needs to get younger and improve on defense and offense. Without many tradeable assets, the Lakers will need to build on a limited budget and still try to compete for an NBA title.
“I came to this place to be a champion. And I’d like to do better,” James said. “So I’ve achieved the goals I set for myself; however, I’m still hungry for more. I’m sure that this group will do to do the same. This is precisely what the company has always been about.
“And I’d like to alter the story of how the franchise can compete on a global scale again. The things they’ve accomplished in the past, decade and decade, and and years of winning. … I’ve informed me that I would like to assist this franchise in becoming an again champion. That’s why I’ve done it. We’ve already done that. But I’d like to do it again.”
The Lakers will have to be better than last season when they were in the bottom three percent of the NBA on defense and offense.
“This was a disappointing Los Angeles Lakers season at every level, and I think our fans expect more in the face of disappointment, and that’s at every facet,” Pelinka added. “It begins at the top of our front desk, which is led by me and our capacity to put together the perfect team. It begins with coaches in the team who hold players accountable and make sure they are executing on the court. This is the responsibility of our trainers to do all they can to ensure that we have healthy bodies on the court. Our players’ responsibility is to ensure that they play on-court execution at the highest levels, as this is what Lakers fans want and expect from us all.
“And, so, when you have disappointment, you need to take ownership of that and you need to vow to make the adjustments to be better and that’s where the work starts today.”