Doyel: Frank Vogel falls victim to Larry Bird's warped thinking

Larry Bird got rid of Frank Vogel because of 1983.

Does that sound stupid? Good. You’re paying attention.

Bird, the Indiana Pacers president, knows what he knows – well, he knows what he knew – and what Bird learned as a player from Boston Celtics President Red Auerbach informed the dangerous decision he made on Thursday to move on from Vogel, one of the best coaches in franchise history.

Vogel is gone despite one Pacers source saying he’s “the best” and a “great man, great leader” who positioned the Pacers “in a good place moving forward.”

The Pacers source who said all that on Thursday?

Larry Bird.

But Bird is getting rid of his overachieving coach because of 1983. And 1988. Here’s Bird defending the decision:

“Just the history. I’ve been around the history of the game for a lot of years. My experience has been, good coaches leave after three years. I played for Bill Fitch and I’ve seen it happen firsthand. I’ve talked to Red Auerbach on the subject a lot. We had K.C. Jones for five years. Nicest man I ever met. And they let him go. And we were having success.”

Bird uses history selectively. Auerbach got rid of Bill Fitch after losing in the 1983 Eastern Conference semifinals, and that worked out. K.C. Jones replaced him and reached the NBA finals his first four years, winning two titles. The new voice worked. Bird remembers that.

Auerbach moved on from K.C. Jones after his fifth year, when the Celtics lost in the conference finals. Auerbach replaced him with Jimmy Rodgers, who lost in the first round twice and was fired. The new voice was a disaster.

Did Bird forget that?

When he became Pacers coach in 1997, Bird told anyone who would listen that he would leave after three years. People didn’t believe him. He led the Pacers to the Eastern Conference finals all three years, including the 2000 NBA Finals, then retired to give the Pacers a new voice. Bird remembers that.

The Pacers replaced him with Isiah Thomas, who bombed.

Did Bird forget that?

“This goes back a long time ago,” Bird said, reminding us that he knows what he knew. “I’ve seen it. And after a certain number of years, it’s time to make a move, and that’s how I feel.”

Interesting, the three-year shelf life Bird assigns a coach. The Pacers have just three players who have been with the team longer, and one (Ian Mahinmi) is a free agent. The other two are Paul George and George Hill. Did Larry Bird really say goodbye to a good coach just so two players can hear a new “voice”?

This is how good Frank Vogel is: He overcame the Pacers' underachieving front office.

Make no mistake, Frank Vogel was better at his job the past two years than Larry Bird. When Paul George went down before the 2014-15 season, we got an eyeful of the dreck that filled out the roster. It was ugly. And Vogel led that team to 38 wins and a tie for the Eastern Conference’s eighth and final playoff spot, which the Pacers lost to Brooklyn in a tiebreaker.

This season Vogel was given a retooled team, with Bird building a roster meant to play faster, knowingly sacrificing defense in search of more offense. Bird made one big offseason addition, Monta Ellis, a decent player but utterly unworthy of his four-year, $44 million contract. Instead of being the star to accompany Paul George’s superstar, Ellis was another role player who turned in his worst season, across the board, since he was a rookie reserve in 2006.

Ellis, who will turn 31 before next season and has two surgically repaired knees, is trending downward. Soon he will fall off a cliff. The Pacers owe him $33.7 million over the next three years.

Vogel didn’t write that contract or construct a team that entered the season without a point guard (Ellis, George Hill and Rodney Stuckey are smallish shooting guards) and with two role players (Mahinmi and Lavoy Allen) as the starting bigs.

Bird acknowledged on Thursday his own shortcomings this past season – if inadvertently – by repeatedly naming the Pacers’ two “really good players” (Paul George, rookie Myles Turner) and describing the rest of the roster this way:

“And then the other pieces.”

Vogel took that roster – one star, one rising star, and then the other pieces – to 45 wins and Game 7 against second-seeded Toronto in the first round of the playoffs.

This season didn’t go wrong because of Frank Vogel. It didn’t go wrong at all, but it wasn’t great for the same reason Vogel is out of a job: because Larry Bird runs his franchise straight out of the mid-1980s.

Back then, see, Red Auerbach didn’t seek input from players. Not even from a player as good as Larry Bird.

“He didn’t want my opinion on anything,” Bird said Thursday.

Bird remembered that as he was putting his 2015-16 roster together, deciding small forward Paul George would move to power forward in an up-tempo attack. Bird never sought George’s input on that decision. Just made it on his own, even with George coming off a gruesomely broken leg.

Larry Bird’s most telling quotes after not retaining Frank Vogel

“I don’t like to bother my players,” Bird said. “When I played, I didn’t want the front office bothering me.”

Pity he never bothered Paul George, because maybe Bird would have learned George didn’t want to switch positions, would basically refuse to do it. Forced to return George to the wing and start the even smaller C.J. Miles at power forward, Vogel eventually had no choice but to return to a traditional, two-big lineup – despite a roster put together by Bird to play smaller. That left Vogel starting two non-starters, Mahinmi and Allen, in the frontcourt until Turner developed.

And still this team won 47 games.

To Larry Bird I say: Good luck finding a better coach than the one you just pushed out, though there are plenty of available candidates – veteran coaches fired by other teams, assistants looking for their first head coaching job. So many names out there for Bird to peruse, from Mark Jackson to David Blatt to Pacers assistant Nate McMillan.

Reaction: Pacers fire Frank Vogel

The best coach on the market, though, is the one Bird just cut loose. And Bird pushed out his exceptional coach because he’s “seen it happen firsthand” with success.

One time.

Before the 1983-84 season.

It worked 33 years ago because the Celtics’ new coach, K.C. Jones, inherited a Hall of Fame frontcourt of Larry Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale. Plus Cedric Maxwell and Dennis Johnson. And Danny Ainge and Quinn Buckner.

The Pacers’ new coach will inherit the great Paul George, the promising Myles Turner, and then the other pieces.

What could possibly go wrong?

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.