Los Angeles Lakers: Frank Vogel the biggest loser in this drama

Frank Vogel was just hired as the Los Angeles Lakers head coach and is already getting the short end of the stick with the franchise’s drama.

Imagine reaching the pinnacle of your career and the focus becomes about outside forces, effectively torpedoing your day. That was how Frank Vogel’s introduction as the Los Angeles Lakers head coach went on Monday morning.

Instead of being welcomed to the Lakers immediately after his introduction by general manager Rob Pelinka, the assembled media were focused on other news.

Specifically, Pelinka was speaking on the appearance of Magic Johnson on the ESPN morning show “First Take,” which was on everybody’s mind.

During his appearance, Magic laid out the organization, specifically accusing Pelinka of “backstabbing,” accusing others of undermining his authority as head of basketball ops and essentially blaming Jeannie Buss of lacking conviction when it came to ownership decisions.

Instead of fielding questions about the new coach and the future of the Los Angeles Lakers with Vogel in charge, Pelinka had to field questions regarding Magic’s remarks.

To his credit, Pelinka did not get into a war of words, only expressing his respect for Magic and refuting that he sought to sabotage their working relationship.

It did not look good for the organization on many levels, Vogel looked small with the chaos of the front office casting a shadow over his tenure before he even gets to run his first practice.

Worse conspicuous by her absence the principal owner Jeannie Buss didn’t attend the press conference.  With the team embattled since Magic resigned Jeannie has yet to make public comments regarding the front office turmoil.

Her absence only serves to fuel the rumors that there is an absence of real leadership in the Lakers organization.

Vogel seemed to read the situation and addressed things in his own way stating:

"“We need to build togetherness with our organization…I’m talking about organizational togetherness. Starting with ownership and the front office to the coaching staff, the players, the trainers, the business side – we are all going to be pulling in the same direction.”"

That kind of optimism by Vogel sounds great in principle, but with his own introduction being overshadowed and the perception that he was the teams third choice he is off to an awful start.

You can’t question his coaching ability but you have to question if his tenure has ended before it even started, only time will tell.