The Big Lead

Frank Vogel Hiring Proves The NBA Loves Retreads, Which Almost Never Works

By Ryan Phillips

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The Orlando Magic officially hired former Indiana Pacers head coach Frank Vogel on Thursday as yet another NBA team has invested heavily in a retread to lead its franchise. This offseason has served to prove NBA franchises are incredibly unimaginative when it comes to hiring head coaches.

So far this season, six of the 10 NBA coaching vacancies have been filled by guys who were fired (or not re-signed) from their previous jobs. Three of those retreads were head coaches in the league during the 2015-16 season, and two others had head gigs during the 2014-15 season. The NBA coaching carousel has essentially become a high-priced shell game. Here’s the list of retread hires so far this offseason, with the Houston Rockets and Memphis Grizzlies yet to make decisions:

  • Minnesota Timberwolves hired Tom Thibodeau, who was fired by the Chicago Bulls in 2015.
  • Washington Wizards hired Scott Brooks, who was fired by the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2015.
  • Sacramento Kings hired Dave Joerger, who was fired by the Memphis Grizzlies two days prior to inking his deal in Sacramento.
  • New York Knicks hired Jeff Hornacek, who was fired by the Phoenix Suns in February of 2016.
  • Indiana Pacers hired Nate McMillan, who coached both the Seattle SuperSonics (2000 to 2005) and Portland Trail Blazers (2005 to 2012).
  • Orlando Magic hired Frank Vogel, whose contract was not renewed by the Indiana Pacers after the 2015-16 season.

Now I’m not saying any of those guys is a bad coach, but other than McMillan, it’s not like they have had time to sit back and learn some new tricks. They’re basically going to wind up running the same systems they ran elsewhere and hoping it works with different players. There is almost no new blood being injected into the NBA’s coaching ranks.

The Houston Rockets also could be poised to hire a retread, as recently-fired Cleveland Cavaliers coach Dave Blatt and former Suns, Knicks and Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni are both in the mix. Meanwhile, the Grizzlies appear to have narrowed their search down to a few of the NBA’s top assistants instead of going the retread route.

The only teams that have actually hired outside-the-box candidates this offseason are the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers. The Nets went with Hawks assistant Kenny Atkinson and the Lakers will bring in Warriors assistant Luke Walton.

My definition of a retread isn’t necessarily someone who has coached in the NBA before, because sometimes those guys leave jobs voluntarily or temporarily retire — like Phil Jackson did after the 1997-98 season. No, a true retread is a guy who got kicked to the curb by his last team.

So why do franchises invest in guys who have already tried and failed in the NBA? Two reasons: comfort level and risk aversion. The league’s general managers and coaches mostly know each other and are familiar with what each guy brings to the table. They often hire their friends and hope a good working relationship will lead to excellence on the court. But mostly general managers aim for guys with high floors instead of high ceilings. GMs know that if their franchise wins games immediately, it will lead to job security, whereas if they gamble on a new guy, they could lose big. Instead of aiming for titles, they aim for postseason berths and hope for the best once their team gets there.

Does anyone really think Frank Vogel is going to lead the Orlando Magic to an NBA championship? Of course not, but he could make them a player in the Eastern Conference. That’s not a knock on Vogel, but he likely maxed out his ceiling with two very good Pacers teams in 2013 and 2014 and he couldn’t win a conference title. Everyone knows what Vogel brings to the table. He’s not flashy or “special” but he’ll likely win more games than he’ll lose and is a safe bet to make a team respectable. If you’re only aiming for “respectable” then sure, hire a retread like Vogel.

Sometimes retreads wind up finding the right formula and taking their new teams to the next level, but it’s extremely rare. If you look at the teams left in the NBA playoffs right now, only Toronto Raptors head man Dwane Casey has been an NBA head coach before his current gig. And Casey’s only previous NBA head coaching stint came with the Minnesota Timberwolves from 2005 to 2007. He had four years on the sidelines to rethink his system before being hired by Toronto in 2011.

The last time a true retread head coach won an NBA title was 2011, when Rick Carlisle took the Dallas Mavericks to the championship. Before that it was Doc Rivers with the Boston Celtics in 2008. Jackson’s titles with the Lakers shouldn’t count because he retired from the Bulls and didn’t get the boot, and Larry Brown won a title with the Pistons in 2004 after voluntarily stepping down from the 76ers the year before. In fact, since 1991, Rivers and Carlisle are the only head coaches who had been fired from their last NBA jobs to lead a team to a championship.

The message here is that successful franchises don’t reuse other teams’ discarded coaches, they go out and find their own. If a coach gets fired, there’s a pretty good chance he’s doing something that isn’t working. Hiring him quickly isn’t going to give him the opportunity to adjust and change his process and you’ll get the same results.