Sources: Frank Vogel to return as Pacers coach
After consecutive losses in the Eastern Conference finals, Frank Vogel will return to coach the Indiana Pacers next season, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Indiana management has never considered replacing him, sources told Yahoo Sports.
Vogel's job status had become fodder for debate because of an unsteady late-season slide that extended into the playoffs, but Pacers president Larry Bird and general manager Kevin Pritchard have remained strong believers in him, sources said.
Most of the stories surrounding Vogel's possible removal as coach, league sources told Yahoo Sports, had been coming from unemployed coaches trying to angle themselves into contention to replace him.
Vogel is 167-100 in parts of four seasons on the job, including consecutive Central Division championships and a 56-victory season that earned the Pacers the top seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs this year.
Bird and Vogel will sit together to answer questions at a season-ending news conference on Monday in Indianapolis.
The Pacers were eliminated from the East finals in a Game 6 loss to Miami on Friday night.
The Pacers have significant questions to address this summer, including the future of restricted free agent guard Lance Stephenson and center Roy Hibbert. Stephenson is a favorite of Bird and is still expected to be retained this summer – unless he signs an offer sheet elsewhere that Indiana decides is just too rich to match.
