Wrote about Frank Vogel, maybe the most underappreciated component of the Lakers’ defense-first marathon to the West title https://t.co/Ypz5hUgK0H
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) September 27, 2020
With Anthony Davis anchoring the middle, a free agency approach focusing on defense first (Danny Green, Avery Bradley, Dwight Howard) and LeBron stamping his approval, Vogel was free to inject his receptive, high-IQ roster with the concepts, schemes and nightly stats to create an attitude and commitment to become elite on that end. The Lakers finished the regular season with the third-best defensive rating.
“If there’s one thing you can hang your hat on about Frank, it’s that he’s going to prepare,” Alex Caruso said. “He’s going to watch more film than everybody. He’s going to do more scouting. That’s just who he is. He’s kind of a nerd for the game of basketball. He looks up stats. He looks up different ways guys are effective. And when you have the basketball minds you have in our locker room and on our coaching staff, you’re going to have success.”
That’s useful in the regular season because of the habits it builds. But with James and Davis, even if the regular-season defensive commitment waned, the Lakers would still have been a top-four seed. You can fake your way to 50 wins with enough talent. LeBron did it his final season in Cleveland with the league’s 29th-ranked defense.
But the playoffs reveal the detail-oriented defensive teams and coaches and expose the ones who skipped steps. If you can’t bring the steady effort and identify the needed in-series adjustments, you won’t survive. The Clippers, with arguably better defensive ingredients, melted. The Bucks, with a stubborn pack-the-paint philosophy, were burned by Miami from deep.
At my heart, I’m like many everyday Lakers fans, demanding change after every speed bump, wanting perfection in a sport manned by human beings, driven by my own opinions of how the game should be played, impatient to a fault.
That’s led me many times to be frustrated and even enraged that Frank Vogel would continue to play JaVale McGee or refuse to surround LeBron and AD with better 3-point shooting. But when the emotions of the games subside and I look back at the fabulous job Frank has done as the coach of my Lakers, I couldn’t be happier or prouder to have had him as the head coach of this team.
As Anthony Slater says in the above article, Frank’s coaching acumen and style are a big reason why the Lakers are back in the Finals and are going to finally win that elusive 17th NBA championship. Just as there is a regular season MVP and a Finals MVP, there should be a Playoffs COY like there is a regular season COY because that’s what Frank Vogel deserves.