Frank Vogel has been relieved of his duties with the Orlando Magic after two seasons with the team. The team made the decision less than a day after their season finale against the Washington Wizards. He registered a 54-110 record during his tenure as head coach in Orlando.
The team officially announced the news on Thursday morning.
When the Orlando Magic hired Frank Vogel as head coach slightly less than two years ago, he was tasked with cultivating the young talent on hand and getting the franchise back in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
When neither of those things occurred at all or on a consistent enough basis over the past two seasons, Vogel was relieved of his duties as the Magic’s head coach on Thursday.
“We would like to thank Frank for his contributions to the Orlando Magic,’’ Magic President of Basketball Operations Jeff Weltman said in a statement. “We appreciate the sacrifices he made as head coach and certainly wish him and his family well going forward.’’
The Orlando Magic find themselves in a similar situation to the New York Knicks heading into the offseason. A new front office found themselves with a coach from a prior regime and they gave him a chance to prove himself. Unfortunately, much like Jeff Hornacek, Vogel’s lone season under new leadership did not turn out to be what the team hoped for.
Weltman and GM John Hammond, hired last May to construct a winner in Orlando, made the decision to fire Vogel after just two years on the job as head coach. Weltman and Hammond have a combined 60-plus years of NBA experience and storied histories of rebuilding downtrodden NBA teams into perennial winners, and now they are attempting to do the same in Orlando.
They will be responsible for hiring Orlando’s next head coach, someone who must get the maximum out of Orlando’s veteran core, develop the young players in place and somehow get the franchise back in contention.
Orlando has missed the playoffs every season since they traded Dwight Howard and fired Stan Van Gundy back in 2012. They’ve been through four coaches in that time and haven’t found much stability in their player development or roster either.
