Frank Vogel Defense

[Covert Rain]

He’s around 36% for his career so maybe a touch below for what we’d like to see. I’ve always said I think his arc on his shot needs to improve from further out.

He focuses a lot on midrange shots and is elite at that area but the threes come and go. He’s on a 3/25 stretch right now, otherwise he’d be around 37-38%.

In Feb he shot 33% from 3. Since the all-star break he is shooting 25.5% from 3. So far for March he is shooting 16.7% from 3. 30% of his shots come from 3. He is killing us with his 3 point shot. What is interesting is when he has 3+ days of rest? His average shoots up to 40%. Point Book IMO, as good as he has looked at times, has been a disaster IMO if you look at the turnover ratio this year and the lack of production in the 4th. His defense has fallen off as well.

It's not all on Book by any stretch but symptomatic of what the Suns are asking their players to do. Book being point Book. Beal handling the ball, Durant handling the ball. Guys playing a ton of minutes because of crappy bench production. It's a bad combo.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

In Feb he shot 33% from 3. Since the all-star break he is shooting 25.5% from 3. So far for March he is shooting 16.7% from 3. 30% of his shots come from 3. He is killing us with his 3 point shot. What is interesting is when he has 3+ days of rest? His average shoots up to 40%. Point Book IMO, as good as he has looked at times, has been a disaster IMO if you look at the turnover ratio this year and the lack of production in the 4th. His defense has fallen off as well.

It's not all on Book by any stretch but symptomatic of what the Suns are asking their players to do. Book being point Book. Beal handling the ball, Durant handling the ball. Guys playing a ton of minutes because of crappy bench production. It's a bad combo.

I hate to admit this, but it looks like Booker may just be a poor man’s harden. Hurts my soul to say that.

 

[Yuma]

we scored 129pts and still got blown the funk out

its almost hard to fathom - how bad you have to be at defense to accomplish something like that

I think we shot 58% on the road and STILL lost.

 

[Yuma]

Book only had 2 turn overs. That's like CP3 efficiency.

 

[1982baskets]

Suns fired this guy and blamed the season on him, but with the same team the new guy they got is doing even worse. Here's what the guy we fired did for the Lakers.

Frank Vogel’s defensive schemes turned the Lakers into a juggernaut, anchoring their 2020 title success and earning Phil Handy’s admiration.

"Frank for me man, he really gave me a master class on defense, like teaching defense and defensive principles. I was in LA with him we had the number one defense in the league for three years in a row and it's not a fluke."
"Frank is in my opinion, he knows defense and our team was perfect for his defensive schemes, the way we defended. It was just hard to score against"

That was Phil Handy, a well known assistant coach around the league on Frank Vogel.

We blamed Vogel well the owners, players, FO, they all seemed to save their butts and put it all on Vogel. However if you look at the wins and losses and the numbers, the Suns under Vogel last year were 1 game shy of 50 wins, and 13th in the league on defense. They had the same exact issues we are dealing with now with the big 3, Beal/Durant unable to stay healthy enough to be consistent and the top heavy roster.

Overall though, I feel we fired and blamed the wrong guy. Right now with Bud we're ranked 24th on defense and on pace to win less games. We may advance in the playoffs, but again, we could have last year as well if the match ups were right (Minnesota with KAT is a different monster last year).

A better alternative move may have been to work with Vogel who got a pretty bad defensive team to play above average defense last year to get him some better defenders so he could put an elite defense around KD/Book/Beal. That was the only way we can win with this group. We will not be able to build a team that can win through depth and more offense.

Don't get me wrong, I know Vogel's limitations on offense. He was far from a perfect coach. I just feel we got worse in the coaching department and just took the easy way out. I was very impressed by the teams in LA and Indiana defensively. I don't think it was a bad plan to have elite defense around Book/Beal/KD. We could have eventually moved Grayson/Nurk for better fits on defense. We will likely move Grayson/Nurk anyway at some point anyway. The defense is the way the go if you want any chance at success with the big 3.

 

[Hoop Head]

Don't get me wrong, I know Vogel's limitations on offense. He was far from a perfect coach. I just feel we got worse in the coaching department and just took the easy way out. I was very impressed by the teams in LA and Indiana defensively. I don't think it was a bad plan to have elite defense around Book/Beal/KD. We could have eventually moved Grayson/Nurk for better fits on defense. We will likely move Grayson/Nurk anyway at some point anyway. The defense is the way the go if you want any chance at success with the big 3.

Vogel was the scapegoat. His rotations and offense were awful. He'd probably do well as a defensive assistant. Unfortunately it didn't work here and we are now in this mess.

We traded defense for offense and hoped Budenholzer could create a D'Antoni like system that could mask the defensive shortcomings. That hasn't happened and was an unrealistic ask anyways because Bud has never been an offensive guru, just a good offensive coach.

I blame the front office for selling us a bill of good that wasn't likely to pan out. I also blame myself for falling for it again. Make no mistake though, we could have Bud, Vogel, and Monty sharing duties on the bench and we'd fail because the personnel isn't there for this team to be more than a pretender.

 

[Phrazbit]

I blame the front office for selling us a bill of good that wasn't likely to pan out. I also blame myself for falling for it again.

To be fair, I think the front office was lying to themselves far more than they were lying to the fan base.

This is more incompetence than malfeasance.

 

[1982baskets]

Vogel was the scapegoat. His rotations and offense were awful. He'd probably do well as a defensive assistant. Unfortunately it didn't work here and we are now in this mess.

I don't think he had much of a roster or rotational depth to work with. O'Neale even came later in the season and hasn't been that good. We've put together not a good overall roster. Considering that, the team won 49 games last year and the big 3 barely played together. I felt Nurk and Grayson were better under Vogel. We haven't seen much improvement of this roster under Bud and he has at least 1 NBA level point guard on his team when Frank had none.

Vogel won a ring with the Lakers and also took Indiana to the conference Finals. He is not an assistant level coach. He's one of the better coaches in the league, even if he was not a good fit with the Suns last year. I understand he's got flaws but I liked that at least he had the team competing on defense and we were able to win nearly 50 games. I think we're doing worse with Bud, and he's had a better situation to work with (year 2 of big 3, some team chemistry, and at least 1 NBA level PG).

 

[95pro]

Vogel was the scapegoat. His rotations and offense were awful. He'd probably do well as a defensive assistant. Unfortunately it didn't work here and we are now in this mess.

I don't think he had much of a roster or rotational depth to work with. O'Neale even came later in the season and hasn't been that good. We've put together not a good overall roster. Considering that, the team won 49 games last year and the big 3 barely played together. I felt Nurk and Grayson were better under Vogel. We haven't seen much improvement of this roster under Bud and he has at least 1 NBA level point guard on his team when Frank had none.

Vogel won a ring with the Lakers and also took Indiana to the conference Finals. He is not an assistant level coach. He's one of the better coaches in the league, even if he was not a good fit with the Suns last year. I understand he's got flaws but I liked that at least he had the team competing on defense and we were able to win nearly 50 games. I think we're doing worse with Bud, and he's had a better situation to work with (year 2 of big 3, some team chemistry, and at least 1 NBA level PG).

I was also thinking about this last night, about how Vogel was able to do this with guys who aren’t in the nba right now.
This year both sides, offence/deffense, look worse.

 

[Hoop Head]

Vogel was the scapegoat. His rotations and offense were awful. He'd probably do well as a defensive assistant. Unfortunately it didn't work here and we are now in this mess.

I don't think he had much of a roster or rotational depth to work with. O'Neale even came later in the season and hasn't been that good. We've put together not a good overall roster. Considering that, the team won 49 games last year and the big 3 barely played together. I felt Nurk and Grayson were better under Vogel. We haven't seen much improvement of this roster under Bud and he has at least 1 NBA level point guard on his team when Frank had none.

Vogel won a ring with the Lakers and also took Indiana to the conference Finals. He is not an assistant level coach. He's one of the better coaches in the league, even if he was not a good fit with the Suns last year. I understand he's got flaws but I liked that at least he had the team competing on defense and we were able to win nearly 50 games. I think we're doing worse with Bud, and he's had a better situation to work with (year 2 of big 3, some team chemistry, and at least 1 NBA level PG).

Suns were at the spot record wise last year this time. They were 14-14 going into the Christmas game against Dallas. We're 14-13 now with 1 game to go. Very likely we end up the same spot.

You can blame the roster on someone else to give Vogel a pass for his awful rotations but he controlled the sub pattern. He also controlled the offense. That's why I said he'd make a better assistant because he was awful at managing those things here and in LA. He may been better in Indiana when nothing was expected of him but the league isn't the same as it was a decade back.

I didn't point to bench scoring as a reason Vogel's rotations stunk either. I only need to point to how the Suns went into virtually every 4th quarter praying for it end quickly. They were the worst 4th scoring team by a comfortable margin. Vogel ran guys into the ground and never found a way to get guys fresh in the 4th when the game would be decided.

You say Royce isn't good, Grayson and Nurk were better, and Budenholzer has a PG yet Vogel also had Gordon, who did a good job filling in for Beal and Booker when he started, but Vogel's supposed superior coaching couldn't do more than what we see now. Coaching isn't the issue, it's a culture issue that goes deeper. There's no leader and hasn't been since Paul left. We're a rudderless ship.

 

[Hoop Head]

I was also thinking about this last night, about how Vogel was able to do this with guys who aren’t in the nba right now.
This year both sides, offence/deffense, look worse.

Only 1 guy out of the top 10 players in minutes per game isn't in the NBA, Bates-Diop. Most NBA rotations are 8-10 players. So I'm not sure what sort of point you're trying to make. Vogel never found end of the rotation guys to stick with and he overplayed guys like Yuta early on and gave Eubanks far too many minutes. Vogel was notorious for not playing guys after big games, like Bol² or Metu, for example. I understand some with Metu because he was an idiot when speaking to the press but Bol² would produce and not see time for a month.

By calling Metu an idiot I mean he'd speak out of class. Often voicing locker room frustrations to the media which helped some narratives gain traction or start new ones.

Main point, Vogel didn't make anyone look like NBA players who weren't talented. If he made them look good they'd be in the league. He may have wanted a PG but when he got one who he had experience with he felt it more important to see if David Roddy could handle PG duties. That was a legit talking point Vogel had late in the year. That shows a disinterest in actually utilizing a PG provided to further experiment and stick with his "No PG" philosophy he started pushing at his introductory press conference.

 

[hcsilla]

I do not regret firing Vogel for a second. I understand that he is considered a solid defensive coach but I never could believe that he is a competent coach for a contender team. I know that he won with the Lakers and was competitve with the Pacers but I always thought that this is some kind of miracle (or due to an excellent coaching staff) since he simply has no charisma at all.

I can hardly see him to coach a U14 team, he seems to have such a blank, weightless personality.

 

[Covert Rain]

I was also thinking about this last night, about how Vogel was able to do this with guys who aren’t in the nba right now.
This year both sides, offence/deffense, look worse.

This is not entirely accurate. I posted the defensive stats when ALL of the guys are healthy. It's like night and day. I know that doesn't help because healthy hasn't really been a thing yet this season. To me, it appears that Bud's system is more predicated on having specific players in specific positions. Vogel to me played a more standard type plug and play scheme.

 

[1982baskets]

This is not entirely accurate. I posted the defensive stats when ALL of the guys are healthy. It's like night and day. I know that doesn't help because healthy hasn't really been a thing yet this season. To me, it appears that Bud's system is more predicated on having specific players in specific positions. Vogel to me played a more standard type plug and play scheme.

You can look at his history in the league. Comments from other coaches like Phil Handy, Jason Kidd. You can look at the defensive metrics of his teams. Every team virtually he coaches improves vastly with him as their head coach. His shortcomings are seen on offense and that he cannot get the respect of stars as much as some other coaches. I don't think he's just a defensive assistant. He's won a ring as a head coach. He's led Indiana to a realistic championship opportunity. Lakers won a title with him coming off a season where they were in the lottery previously.

The bottom line is this team at best is no better without him, and Bud in his place. However what's very worrying is to me isn't if Bud is a better coach than Vogel. To me they are both good coaches in the NBA. Both have won a ring. Both have had some success with multiple teams (so it's not like just 1 lucky stop/fortunate situation). Bud has been good in a few spots. Same with Vogel. I wouldn't have had a problem with choosing Bud a year ago over Vogel. That's ok to me. I am not arguing against Bud.

The real issue I have with this whole thing is the ownership, players, GM all getting together and scapegoating the head coach. The problem was not the coach. It's been the players and the team. The real problem was hiding. I could be wrong but I bet Jones knew all along the problem is the roster. He just doesn't have the guts to let ownership know. Now? They probably know.

What they're hoping for is probably a weaker Western conference. Denver is weaker than last year, Warriors dynasty is over Klay left, Wolves foolishly traded KAT for Randle and are much worse, so the only team that is same good as last year is Dallas who also made some changes with Klay coming in. So the West is more open and maybe we will win a playoff series or so and call it a big success.

If we have any clue we should be looking to move Durant for some future assets. Same with Book. Beal is a lost cause until his deal is close to expiring. We should look to re-build and allow someone like Bud to develop his system from the scratch like he did with the Hawks many years ago.

 

[Covert Rain]

The bottom line is this team at best is no better without him, and Bud in his place. However what's very worrying is to me isn't if Bud is a better coach than Vogel. To me they are both good coaches in the NBA. Both have won a ring. Both have had some success with multiple teams (so it's not like just 1 lucky stop/fortunate situation). Bud has been good in a few spots. Same with Vogel. I wouldn't have had a problem with choosing Bud a year ago over Vogel. That's ok to me. I am not arguing against Bud.

Except that's not what the stats say when the entire team is healthy. I posted those earlier. With KD and everyone in the lineup they are a Top 10 defense. Without KD in the lineup they are 27th. Vogel's defense here was never Top 10. It appears the last couple games though that missing Book might as big of an issue as missing KD. What is troubling though is Top 10 or not the team seems to struggle with points in the paint and defending the 3.

Nobody is intimidated by Nurk. Nobody. I would be all for trading Nurk to see if we can get anybody with a better inside presence on defense. In a perfect world (assuming the Suns are going to still go for it), I would move Nurk, and move Beal (get him to waive his NTC) and get other pieces in here. However, easier said than done with all the restrictions. in terms of defending the 3, teams are simply shooting a ton of 3's. I think defending the 3 is down across the league and Bud might be able to make some defensive rotations adjustment to minimize that. I don't see how they get better at defending the paint without a change.

 

[elindholm]

The real issue I have with this whole thing is the ownership, players, GM all getting together and scapegoating the head coach. The problem was not the coach. It's been the players and the team. The real problem was hiding. I could be wrong but I bet Jones knew all along the problem is the roster. He just doesn't have the guts to let ownership know.

I agree that scapegoating Vogel was a mistake and that expecting Budenholzer to make a big difference was also a mistake. However, I disagree that the problem was hidden. Once the Nuggets eliminated the Suns from the 2023 playoffs, it was obvious that the Durant trade had set the franchise in a downward spiral from which there was little hope of recovering. The Paul and Ayton trades were neither good nor bad. They were desperate experiments that were unlikely to be better than staying the course, but were also unlikely to be worse.

The coach back then, a mere year and a half ago, was Monty Williams. Remember him? But he was neither the problem nor the solution, Vogel was neither the problem nor the solution, and Budenholzer is also neither the problem nor the solution.

We know that James has known this all along, because he refused to make the Durant trade until Ishbia stormed in and forced the Suns to dramaticaly increase their offer. The reason Jones didn't increase the offer on his own was that he knew doing so would be a mistake. Jones played against Durant, probably dozens of times. He knew who Durant was.

If we have any clue we should be looking to move Durant for some future assets.

Too late. Any team acquiring Durant knows that they'll have to agree to an extension to try to extract value from him, and no one wants to do that. Probably even the Suns don't want to extend him, but they'll talk themselves into thinking that they have no choice.

 

[Mainstreet]

I agree that scapegoating Vogel was a mistake and that expecting Budenholzer to make a big difference was also a mistake. However, I disagree that the problem was hidden. Once the Nuggets eliminated the Suns from the 2023 playoffs, it was obvious that the Durant trade had set the franchise in a downward spiral from which there was little hope of recovering. The Paul and Ayton trades were neither good nor bad. They were desperate experiments that were unlikely to be better than staying the course, but were also unlikely to be worse.

The coach back then, a mere year and a half ago, was Monty Williams. Remember him? But he was neither the problem nor the solution, Vogel was neither the problem nor the solution, and Budenholzer is also neither the problem nor the solution.

We know that James has known this all along, because he refused to make the Durant trade until Ishbia stormed in and forced the Suns to dramaticaly increase their offer. The reason Jones didn't increase the offer on his own was that he knew doing so would be a mistake. Jones played against Durant, probably dozens of times. He knew who Durant was.



Too late. Any team acquiring Durant knows that they'll have to agree to an extension to try to extract value from him, and no one wants to do that. Probably even the Suns don't want to extend him, but they'll talk themselves into thinking that they have no choice.

I agree with almost all of this, but I think you give James Jones too much credit.

IMO, he had been waiting all season to make the trade for Kevin Durant. Then, with new Suns ownership, he had the green light to make the trade.

 

[AzStevenCal]

I agree with almost all of this, but I think you give James Jones too much credit.

IMO, he had been waiting all season to make the trade for Kevin Durant. Then, with new Suns ownership, he had the green light to make the trade.

I don't think so. I believe Ishbia listened to his new best friend and overruled JJ. But that's simply my opinion, I have no more information on it than you do. Maybe one day we'll find out the real story.

 

[Mainstreet]

I don't think so. I believe Ishbia listened to his new best friend and overruled JJ. But that's simply my opinion, I have no more information on it than you do. Maybe one day we'll find out the real story.

Maybe the truth will come out some day.

How I view James Jones is influenced by the 2020 draft and the Suns trading of a first round pick for Landry Shamet.

 

[Hoop Head]

Too late. Any team acquiring Durant knows that they'll have to agree to an extension to try to extract value from him, and no one wants to do that. Probably even the Suns don't want to extend him, but they'll talk themselves into thinking that they have no choice.

This is an interesting point with KD's extension. I think they could have been bluffing in the preseason when talking about how excited they were to extend KD, which was the narrative, in order to keep his value somewhat high. It's not that different from Jimmy Butler's saga in Miami only he wants out, KD wants to stay. Both front offices are painting pictures for the perception of others so they don't kill their value or leverage.

 

[Mainstreet]

This is an interesting point with KD's extension. I think they could have been bluffing in the preseason when talking about how excited they were to extend KD, which was the narrative, in order to keep his value somewhat high. It's not that different from Jimmy Butler's saga in Miami only he wants out, KD wants to stay. Both front offices are painting pictures for the perception of others so they don't kill their value or leverage.

What is worrisome, I believed Mat Ishbia when he said he wanted to extend Kevin Durant for two more seasons.

 

[AzStevenCal]

What is worrisome, I believed Mat Ishbia when he said he wanted to extend Kevin Durant for two more seasons.

I know how easy it would be to convince yourself that it's the right move. And as I recall Ishbia also said that they were going to get out of the second apron in a year or two so perhaps he thinks an extended KD will have more trade value?

 

[Mainstreet]

I know how easy it would be to convince yourself that it's the right move. And as I recall Ishbia also said that they were going to get out of the second apron in a year or two so perhaps he thinks an extended KD will have more trade value?

When those comments were made, I think the owner intended to ride that horse into the sunset.

As a side note, Devin Booker doesn't look very happy. I wouldn't be shocked to hear him speak up if things continue to go down hill.

 

[AzStevenCal]

When those comments were made, I think the owner intended to ride that horse into the sunset.

As a side note, Devin Booker doesn't look very happy. I wouldn't be shocked to hear him speak up if things continue to go down hill.

I never thought we'd win a championship with this group but I really expected a lot more from them than we've seen. And the biggest disappointment of all, for me, has been Devin Booker. We all have our ideas but whatever brought this about, this just isn't the same Devin Booker of a few years ago. With that Booker, we'd be a pretty good team - not good enough to win it all but a threat to win most nights.

 

[Mainstreet]

I never thought we'd win a championship with this group but I really expected a lot more from them than we've seen. And the biggest disappointment of all, for me, has been Devin Booker. We all have our ideas but whatever brought this about, this just isn't the same Devin Booker of a few years ago. With that Booker, we'd be a pretty good team - not good enough to win it all but a threat to win most nights.

The Suns came so close to winning it that Finals run, who would have thought it would come to such a sour end the following season against the Mavericks in the playoffs.

For me, the Dallas series seemed to be sort of a marker when the change occurred. A lot of things were going on with Ayton and Crowder, maybe Booker as well.