Roy Hibbert likes that Los Angeles Lakers head coach Byron Scott, unlike Indiana Pacers head coach Frank Vogel, played in the NBA.
Yessireebob, that’s apparently a thing.
The Pacers dealt Hibbert to the Lakers amid the free agency hustle and bustle in exchange for, well, pretty much nothing other than salary-cap scraps. He has noticeably regressed over the past year, and the Pacers are looking to play small and fast, something for which the big and slow Hibbert isn’t really suited. It made sense for both parties to move on. After all, for Hibbert’s part, Pacers president Larry Bird and Vogel weren’t exactly supportive of him at the team’s end-of-season presser. They basically dared him to opt out of his contract and leave.
But leaving that much money on the table—$15-plus million—was never really an option. So the Pacers went to work on trading him, while Hibbert went to work crossing his fingers in hopes he landed with a coach that met his, um, standards.
Here’s an excerpt from a question-and-answer sessions Hibbert had with NBA.com’s David Aldridge:
[Hibbert]: …And I wanted to play for a coach who actually played in the league if I had my own choice. Not to say that Frank [Vogel] wasn’t great. I had some real good times with Frank and we played well. But I told my agent that I possibly wanted to play for a coach that played in the league.
[Aldridge]: Why is that important to you?
RH: Just playing for [Brian] Shaw (the Pacers’ former associate head coach under Vogel), he went through the things that a player has gone through. He had a lot of real good insight to help myself, my game, with other guys on the court. Because he went through those things. And when you had two sets of four games in five nights, he was real with us. He would say, ‘if I’m tired, you’re tired.’ It’s not a huge thing, but I’m really lucky to be in this position.
Well, there ya go. Hibbert tries to make it seem like he isn’t throwing veiled shade at Vogel and the Pacers, but he most definitely is. He manages to compliment Scott, who hasn’t coached a playoff team since 2009, and Brian Shaw, who couldn’t hack it as a head coach in Denver because he never related to his players, while diminishing the job Vogel has done in Indiana.
Good stuff.
It’s well within Hibbert’s right to laud his new situation, and it’s certainly OK that he prefers to play for a coach who spent time in the NBA’s player pool himself. But in this day and age, given the rise of analytics, as well as the success some non-former-player coaches have had in the NBA, it shouldn’t be a prerequisite.
There are a ton of sideline-meanderers with playing experience as it is, so it’s not like they’re in short supply. It sounds like Hibbert, then, has just yet to find the head coach for him, regardless of his track record as a player, and that he’s really hoping Scott is the guy who can reach him on levels Vogel couldn’t.
It also sounds, above all else, as if he’s really not over what went down Indy.
