To say that the Los Angeles Lakers have had a difficult season would be an understatement. More like a disaster. Now the team has fired head coach Frank Vogel. Good move or not, Shaq thinks it was handled badly… really badly.
The Lakers finished this season in 11th place (out of 15) in the NBA’s Western Division. They missed the playoffs and are done for the season. That’s despite having a star-filled lineup that included GOAT contender LeBron James and Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook and others. Yes, there were some injuries and some of the big names sat for a time. But still, to miss the playoffs and be replaced by teams like the San Antonio Spurs and New Orleans Pelicans? Not good.
So when the regular season ended, it took about five seconds for the Lakers front office to announce the firing of head coach Frank Vogel. News of Vogel’s firing originally broke immediately following the Lakers’ season ended with an overtime win over the Denver Nuggets. Seems Vogel hadn’t been given any kind of heads-up or warning. He heard about it with the rest of the team and the NBA community.
Plenty of people – including O’Neal – are speaking out about the way the termination was handled. On a recent episode of his “Big Podcast,” Shaq said he heard about his own trade the same way…through the news as it happened, not from the front office of the Lakers organization.
“Yeah, he was done dirty ’cause that’s how I heard I was getting traded,” said O’Neal before explaining how he felt disrespected by the Lakers during his playing days.
That’s not all. Shaq also used his podcast podium to suggest other NBA coaches and coaching candidates should not “waste your time” with the Lakers. O’Neal said if he were Vogel, he would’ve quit before officially getting fired by the franchise.
Click here to go to the podcast on Spotify.
Vogel spent three seasons as the head coach of the Lakers, gathering a 127-98 record in the regular season and 18-9 record in the playoffs. He won an NBA title in his first season with L.A. Quite the fall in such a short period of time.
As we mentioned, the team’s poor performance certainly hasn’t been all his fault. Over the past two seasons, Vogel and the Lakers have dealt with a LOT of injuries to some of the big names on the roster. Those injuries definitely hurt the Lakers chances of doing anything in the postseason in 2021 and 2022. In the 2021 NBA Playoffs, the team lost to the Phoenix Suns in the first round in six games. And as we’ve just witnessed, the Lakers didn’t even make the postseason tournament this year.
One of the names being tossed around as a possible replacement for Vogel is Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder. Here at the offices of ShaqFu Radio, we’re not really sure why Snyder would leave a pretty good situation in Salt Lake and want to join the underperforming Lakers. Now, there are some interesting questions over who will head up the Lakers next year, after this year’s PR disaster.
It’s only a matter of time to see who the Lakers choose as their next head coach, and how that introduction and contract are handled. It’s obvious the team has a lot of rebuilding to do. In a recent ShaqFu Radio post, the Big Man suggested completely blowing up the roster and only keeping LeBron and AD. Will it happen? Probably not like that, but either way, it’s going to be an interesting off season for the Purple and Gold.