Frank Vogel out as coach of Los Angeles Lakers after three seasons, sources say

Frank Vogel, who led the Los Angeles Lakers to the 2020 NBA championship, has coached his remaining recreation for the group, a call anticipated to be shared with him as quickly as Monday, sources informed ESPN.

The Lakers’ seek for his alternative is anticipated to be expansive and prolonged — and not using a clear-cut front-runner, sources mentioned.

The Lakers concluded a disappointing 33-49 season on Sunday with a 146-141 overtime victory on the Denver Nuggets, after being eradicated from play-in match competition on Tuesday.

Vogel, who signed an authentic three-year contract in 2019 and acquired a one-year extension by way of 2022-23 this previous offseason, mentioned following Sunday’s recreation that he hadn’t been informed something about his future with the staff.

“I have not been informed s— and I will get pleasure from tonight’s recreation, have a good time what these younger guys did by way of scratching and clawing and getting again on this recreation and getting a W, and we’ll take care of tomorrow, tomorrow,” he informed reporters throughout his postgame media availability.

Continuity was a relentless problem for Vogel and the Lakers this season, as they needed to deal with accidents to stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis and a difficult roster building, together with restricted taking pictures and athleticism.

Los Angeles was the one staff to not have a single five-man lineup play 100 minutes collectively, based on ESPN Stats & Info analysis. Regardless of coming into the season with excessive expectations, the Lakers have been solely capable of have James, Davis and Russell Westbrook on the ground collectively for 21 video games. They went 11-10 in these contests.

The Lakers completed the season within the backside 10 in each offensive and defensive effectivity, rating 21st in defensive score after ending first in 2020-21 and third in 2019-20.

L.A. misplaced 18 of 24 video games following the All-Star break, with solely the Portland Trail Blazers, Houston Rockets and Indiana Pacers ending with worse data throughout that span.

Lakers rookie Austin Reaves, who posted a triple-double with 31 factors, 16 rebounds and 10 assists in Sunday’s finale, mentioned it was “good to exit with an enormous win for [Vogel] and our staff.”

Malik Monk, who scored a career-high 41 factors, credited Vogel’s strategy all through the season regardless of his job standing being referred to as into query.

“He stored his cool the entire time,” Monk mentioned. “Did not speak about no issues like that. Did not speak about something like that, man. He got here in and labored and all the time gave us an amazing recreation plan … He was all the time about us. It was by no means actually about him. And I reward him for that, man. I do know that was fairly exhausting on him, however he by no means talked about it. He by no means modified his demeanor.”

Vogel led the Lakers to an NBA title within the Orlando, Florida, bubble throughout the COVID-affected 2019-20 season, and stored the franchise as one of many league’s elite defensive groups all through his first two seasons in Los Angeles. He’s anticipated to be a candidate in future head-coaching cycles elsewhere within the league.

ESPN’s Dave McMenamin contributed to this report.