Letters to Sports: Lakers bosses won’t fix their problems by firing Frank Vogel

Lakers coach Frank Vogel argues after a point with official Courtney Kirkland.
L.A. Occasions readers imagine coach Frank Vogel, arguing after a name with official Courtney Kirkland on Friday in Orlando, is being made a scapegoat for the Lakers’ issues.
(Phelan M. Ebenhack / Related Press)

I seen that Magic Johnson weighed in on the Lakers’ lack of effort in Denver. As I bear in mind it, when the going acquired robust for Magic within the Lakers’ entrance workplace, he stop. Possibly we’ve heard sufficient from him for some time.

David Waldowsi
Laguna Woods

::

Hey, Magic, the place was your outrage when generations of followers had been disadvantaged of the final a number of years of Vin Scully and the Dodgers due to the TV fiasco? As Dodger followers didn’t we deserve higher as effectively?

Marty Cohn
Santa Barbara

::

It’s time for the Lakers to maneuver on from Frank Vogel. They're a crew with a historical past of nice facilities, but he has turned them right into a small-ball crew with no rim safety. I hate his non-use of DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard. I’m sick of watching LeBron James with 4 guards. Pathetic Sacramento scored 70 factors within the paint! There was no person to swat their photographs as soon as they blew by the Lakers’ guards. Even when AD returns, he’ll be on the perimeter chasing guards as an alternative of battling for rebounds and blocking photographs within the paint. It’s too painful to look at.

Eric J. Chambers
Placentia

::

So Rob Pelinka and Kurt Rambis really suppose the issue with this Lakers crew is Frank Vogel? Wasn’t it Pelinka who over the past two years dismantled the 2020 championship crew that centered on protection and athleticism and changed them with older gamers with lower than stellar defensive reputations? Vogel didn’t commerce for Russell Westbrook, who's horrible ending across the basket and is an atrocious shooter who doesn’t match effectively with LeBron James. Vogel didn’t commerce all their defensive stalwarts. And why is Rambis even concerned on this, he of the 72-173 teaching document? Administration must look themselves within the eyes and inform themselves, “We created this mess. It’s our duty to repair it.” And firing Coach Vogel is pure scapegoating.

Danny Balber Jr.
Pasadena

::

The architects (Pelinka, James) provide you with the blueprint. The proprietor (Buss) indicators off on the plan. Vogel, the contractor, er coach, works with the supplies given him by the architect and is predicted to ship a world-class product with seemingly sub-standard parts not of his selecting.

And from there we get rumblings, innuendo and cookie-cutter sound bites that dodge the crux of the matter. This Lakers squad lacks coronary heart, they don't have any satisfaction, they coast and money their checks.

It might be refreshing if the accountable events, all mired in mediocrity, spoke candidly — and in truth — about what is actually happening.

David Griffin
Westwood

::

I don’t know who's driving the narrative that Frank Vogel has to go due to his underachieving crew, but it surely is mindless.

I feel most followers notice that the Lakers will wrestle with Anthony Davis out, so till he will get again (or together with his harm historical past, IF he will get again), no person exterior of the Laker’s entrance workplace ought to be clamoring for any teaching adjustments.

Ken Blake
Brea

::

They should take the O from the new area title for the Lakers and simply name it Crypt as a result of the Lakers look lifeless and buried. They're a humiliation to town of L.A.

Craig London
Woodland Hills

4 extra years?

About your article “UCLA brings again Chip Kelly,” this was the right alternative for UCLA to rebuild its devastated soccer program and convey the followers again to the Rose Bowl. Nonetheless, the varsity administration went in one other route. However the truth that Kelly has the worst document of any soccer coach in UCLA’s historical past with a tenure of 4 years, they inexplicably noticed match to offer him not solely one other four-year contract but in addition to extend his pay. It seems to me that UCLA has successfully written off its soccer program and made a agency dedication to mediocrity.

Jeffrey Clark
Coto de Caza

::

I used to be initially impressed by the UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond’s skill to usher in Nike’s Jumpman and get School GameDay on campus.

However the justification press launch to retain Kelly is eyebrow elevating. He states, “Our profitable % elevated yearly.” Since when ought to three-, four- and three-win seasons ever be acceptable?

Secondly, Jarmond writes, "... upward trajectory of our soccer program.” Kelly is 2-22(!) versus groups with profitable information, together with getting crushed twice by Lincoln Riley, and in his fourth 12 months, Kelly went 0-4 versus profitable groups. His rehire indicators “Champions Made Right here” is now not the mantra for UCLA soccer.

David Choromanski
Manhattan Seaside

::

Only a guess, however I feel there are extra USC followers enthusiastic about Kelly’s new contract than Bruins followers. USC’s loss to the Bruins this 12 months acquired it finished. 4 extra years!

Judy Thomsen
Glendora

Operating from racism

I at all times puzzled why, after the Rams lastly acquired a quarterback, they traded away Eric Dickerson, the best operating again of his period. I figured it was the cheapness of Georgia Frontiere, however I didn’t notice the racism concerned. I’m rather a lot much less clueless now than I used to be then.

Mike Schaller
Temple Metropolis

::

My solely reminiscence of Dickerson was that he was an impressive operating again for the Rams. After studying this text, I now see him as an ungrateful and contract-challenged particular person whose lifelong ardour has turn out to be getting followers like me to really feel sorry for him.

Scott Golden
La Mirada

Djokovic’s antics

Earlier than the anti-vaxxers get all weepy-eyed about Novak Djokovic’s expulsion from the Aussie Open, we should always bear in mind this is identical man who injured a lineswoman on the U.S. Open, endangered numerous individuals with COVID at his superspreader occasions, and is definitely a hypocrite (he criticized Naomi Osaka on the latest French Open for “not following the principles”). The Aussies could have botched the operation, however the affected person acquired what he deserved.

David Wilczynski
Manhattan Seaside

An excessive amount of rambling

It’s miserable sufficient to look at the final two UCLA basketball video games with no spectators, however to endure by way of Invoice Walton makes it nearly insufferable. As soon as once more, Babblin’ Invoice destroys the viewer expertise with a relentless stream of irrelevance that's of curiosity solely to him. Take away any topic over 10 years previous, and unrelated anecdotes from non-basketball sports activities, and he’d don't have anything to say. And wouldn’t that be good.

Ron Levin
Pacific Palisades

Truthful illustration

You don’t actually report on girls’s sports activities in any respect, do you? A tennis nice, Chris Evert, has most cancers. However would from The Occasions? Or about any girls’s athletes, sports activities, leagues within the higher metro space. We're two subscribers, each girls, each followers of every kind of sports activities, males’s and girls’s, however NEVER learn zip about it within the L.A. Occasions.

Carol Pierman
Level Richmond

Impressed play

My dad — who handed away at age 92 on MLK Day — at all times loved studying my letters on this house. He was raised in Kansas Metropolis and was a Rams season-ticket holder from the “Crazylegs” Hirsch days.

Like Brett Favre appeared to be on a mission throughout that 2004 MNF sport simply after his father handed away, throughout their first-round playoff video games it appeared the Chiefs and Rams had been enjoying for my dad. Hopefully they hold that up of their video games this weekend.

Ken Feldman
Tarzana

::

The Los Angeles Occasions welcomes expressions of all views. Letters ought to be temporary and turn out to be the property of The Occasions. They could be edited and republished in any format. Every should embody a sound mailing deal with and phone quantity. Pseudonyms won't be used.

Electronic mail: sports activities@latimes.com

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post