The Orlando Magic underwent a surprising change over the offseason. After head coach Scott Skiles shockingly stepped away from his position, the team moved fast in hiring their next lead man. Frank Vogel, recently let-go by the Indiana Pacers, was arguably the best coach remaining on the open market and the Magic were able to hire the successful coach.
On Monday, Vogel was introduced for the first time as the head coach of the Magic and talked about his expectations for the team. While he acknowledged that the team is very young and has a long way to go, he did have high expectations for the team starting with this season. In fact, Vogel is shooting for a playoff berth immediately:
“We’re gonna win. It’s that simple. We’re gonna go out, we’re gonna work our tails off, we’re gonna instill discipline, we’re gonna inspire our guys, we’re gonna develop our young players, we’re gonna develop our veteran players into being better veterans, and we’re gonna win games. Obviously, this group hasn’t been to the playoffs so if you wanna look for a bar of where we’re gonna set the standard on our goals, we’re gonna get in the playoffs this year.”
This may be a tall task for the Magic after what was an objectively disappointing season for them. The goal last year was to make the playoffs but after starting the year out strong, they were unable to keep the success going, ultimately falling quite short of their objective.
Nevertheless, Orlando has plenty of talent on the roster and despite concerns about fit, they should be able to at least contend for the eighth seed if they get some level of extra development from their key players. It may be a tough task but Frank Vogel is correct in seeing it as the main goal for the Magic in their first season under a new head coach.
