Former Lakers Coach Interviews With Rockets For Head Coaching Vacancy

A former title-winning head coach for the Purple and Gold is on the market.

Your Los Angeles Lakers unfairly canned former head coach Frank Vogel at the end of an ill-fated 2021-22 NBA season, where the team's terrible roster was really more at fault for the club's 33-49 record than its coach was. 

Ahead of a year where LA's not-so-big three of LeBron James, Anthony Davis and, uh, Russell Westbrook failed to mesh on the hardwood together, Vogel had inked a one-year contract extension through this 2022-23 season, and thus when he was fired last spring he was able to sit at home and collect a paycheck from Jeanie Buss and co. even without being on a team.

Now, it appears Vogel may be looking for his next gig: the rebuilding Houston Rockets.

Kelly Iko of The Athletic reports Houston interviewed Vogel for their new head coaching vacancy today. The Rockets recently fired former head coach Stephen Silas. 

The 49-year-old Vogel won a title during his first season as the Lakers' head coach, in 2019-20, and the team probably would have mounted a solid defense of its crown had it not been felled by an Anthony Davis injury in the midst of its 2021 first round series against the Phoenix Suns, the eventual NBA Finals representatives in the West.

Vogel, a defensive specialist, was at loss during last season's miserable run, saddled with a roster featuring several players who are now out of the league due to massive deficiencies on both sides of the ball. Westbrook, who was just as bad this season with LA as he was last year, also cratered plenty of late-game offensive opportunities for the team.

Prior to his Lakers tenure, Vogel served as the head coach of several high-quality Indiana Pacers clubs during their Paul George/David West/Roy Hibbert/Lance Stephenson era, that twice made it to the Eastern Conference Finals, only to twice be knocked out by his eventual Lakers comrade LeBron James' star-studded Miami Heat. He eventually moved on to an unmemorable stint with some lottery-bound Orlando Magic teams, before getting another crack at contention in Los Angeles.

He owns a cumulative 431-389 regular season record and a 49-39 postseason record.

Houston boasts several recent lottery picks, and stands to add another high-caliber prospect in the 2023 draft this summer.

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