Frank Vogel hired Jim Boylen for his Indiana Pacers staff in 2011, shortly after the University of Utah fired Boylen from his lone head coaching job at the time.
Now Vogel coaches the Lakers and Boylen coaches the Bulls. Tuesday night marked the first time they squared off as NBA head coaches.
“He’s one of the smartest basketball men I’ve ever worked with. He taught me a lot,” Vogel said. “Your assistants learn from you and they work for you. But you learn from your assistants as well. Not just on the defensive end, he brought a lot of post offensive principles to our Pacers teams. He was with Hakeem Olajuwon and Rudy Tomjanovich all those years in Houston.
“That team we had in Indiana with (Roy) Hibbert and (David) West, we posted up a lot. What was the spacing going to look like? How are we going to punish double teams? Quite frankly, all those principles are applying to this team as well.”
That’s because the Lakers employ Anthony Davis, a matchup nightmare who can do plenty offensively, including post up.
Those Pacers teams advanced to the second round and Eastern Conference finals before Boylen left for an opportunity on Gregg Popovich’s Spurs staff.
“Frank and I were very close. I loved working for him. We spent a lot of time together. Our families were close. We lived close to each other,” Boylen said. “Frank is a worker. He’s a defensive-minded guy. So I think we were kindred spirits there.
NBA
“He’s a really good person. He was very sharing and caring with me. We would discuss things. We bounced things off each other well. It was very difficult for me to leave there to go to San Antonio. He did not want me to leave. Part of me wanted to stay. But I thought the opportunity to go to the Spurs was the thing to do. That was a tough moment for us. We didn’t talk as much after that for a few months. And then we figured out it wasn’t a big deal. We were both doing OK. And we kind of talked it out.”
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