Orlando Magic Find a Proven Winner Who Can Develop Young Roster in Frank Vogel

The Orlando Magic can almost smell, taste and touch the end of their post-Dwight Howard playoff drought.

They started the 2015-16 NBA season at 19-13 and finished with 35 wins—10 more than the year prior. The lean years since Howard’s exodus have brought scores of young talent to the Magic Kingdom. This summer could see more of the same, by way of the 11th pick in the 2016 draft and upwards of $30 million in cap space.

Scott Skiles’ sudden resignation, as jarring as it was, opened the door for Orlando to find a coach who fit the franchise’s long-term vision.

As Magic general manager Rob Hennigan said earlier this month, per ESPN.com:

Sort of the fulcrum of what we’re looking for is someone who puts an emphasis on the defensive end of the floor, someone who puts an emphasis on player development and also someone who puts an emphasis on building lasting connections with the players on our roster.

In Frank Vogel, Orlando found someone who fits that description to a tee.

Year in and year out, Vogel’s Indiana Pacers were among the league’s stingiest defensive squads. As the Orlando Sentinel’s Josh Robbins noted, “In his five full seasons as the Pacers’ coach, the team finished in the top six in field-goal percentage defense every year and in the top 10 in defensive efficiency every year.”

Over that same span, the Magic slipped into the bottom six in field-goal percentage defense once, peaking at 13th in 2013-14. Meanwhile, Orlando ranked among the bottom 10 in defensive efficiency twice and never finished higher than 14th.

Helping the Magic narrow that defensive gap will be no easy feat for Vogel. He’ll not only have to sort out what kind of defensive scheme works best for this group, but also wrangle into it a roster that was the NBA’s sixth-youngest this past season.

“You want to make them enjoy [defense], enjoy the hard work and the reward in getting stop after stop after stop when your shots aren’t falling,” Vogel told NBA.com Magic reporter John Denton. “We’ll do that [in Orlando] because I have confidence that this team has great athleticism and good speed, and I believe that I can mold them into one of the better defensive units in the league.”

Vogel will have at his fingertips a collection of players with the physical tools to clamp down defensively. Aaron Gordon, Victor …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com