Just days after pushing the heavily favored Toronto Raptors to seven games in the first round of the playoffs, the Indiana Pacers decided not to renew the contract of Frank Vogel. Larry Bird made the announcement at a mysterious press conference late Thursday morning, expressing nothing but kind words for Vogel, who is arguably the most successful NBA coach the team has employed. 

Moving on from Vogel in favor of a new voice -- a refrain Bird used often -- isn’t all that surprising. There was a strong argument to be made in support of Vogel, but building a case against him isn’t a Sisyphean task either. You could, however, question the reasoning Bird provided.

If Bird wrote a basketball constitution, his belief that players tune out coaches after three years would be near the top. He coached the Pacers for exactly three seasons before stepping away after the franchise’s only appearance in the NBA Finals (2000). Since returning to the front office in 2003, the Pacers have had three coaches: Rick Carlisle lasted four years, Jim O’Brien was on the job for 3 ½ years, which was at least a half-season too long, and Vogel received nearly six years, which might be the biggest compliment Bird could pay him.

Over Bird’s 13 seasons with the Boston Celtics he played for four coaches despite making the postseason every single year. 

“I’ve been around the history of the game for a lot of years, my experience has been good coaches leave after three years,” Bird explained. “I played for Bill Fitch and seen it happen first hand. I 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 evaded it Thursday -- albeit not subtly -- but even more than the desire for a new voice, Bird wants a coach that can commit fully to realizing his dream of a faster, more prolific offense. There is a bit of a contradiction here: Bird wants his coach to play a more modern style, but under his guidance coaches won’t be given very long to deliver. Vogel guided the team to a pair of Eastern Conference Finals, oversaw the growth and superstardom of Paul George, nearly squeezed a playoff berth out of a decimated roster last season and almost became just the sixth coach in league history to lead a seventh seed over a two seed. All that success brought him was two-plus seasons past Bird’s expiration date. Playing a Golden State-esque style is forward-thinking, but franchises are also committing significant resources (and time) to coaches nowadays.

The Celtics looked like they were taking a substantial risk when they signed Brad Stevens to a six-year deal three years ago straight from Butler and now he’s considered one of the best coaching hires. The Wizards just gave Scott Brooks a five-year deal. The Timberwolves landed Tom Thibodeau after offering a five-year deal and decision-making power as team president.

There are still teams that go through coaches, but job security has become a large part of stable, perennially successful franchises.

Unless they give a great sales pitch, the Pacers won’t be able to offer much of anything in terms of security or personnel power. With that said, the chance to coach Paul George, who was arguably the best player in the first round, in his prime years is an enticing proposition. Bird wasn’t boasting when he suggested that calls about the job would begin coming in minutes after he announced Vogel was gone. 

The Pacers enjoyed a great deal of success under Vogel, but he isn’t without his weaknesses. Over his five full seasons the offense ranked seventh, 20th, 23rd, 23rd and 25th in points per 100 possessions. In two of those seasons, 12-13 and 13-14, the Pacers were at their height with a stable starting five of George Hill, Lance Stephenson, George, David West and Roy Hibbert. Looking back, it seems inconceivable that they weren’t at least average offensively.

Vogel also had a few decisions backfire under a national microscope. He famously planted Hibbert, then the league’s best rim protector, on the bench for the final possession of Game 1 of the 2013 conference finals and watched LeBron James hit the game-winning layup. The Miami Heat went on to win that series in seven games.

The very next postseason, the Pacers stumbled towards the finish line and just barely got past the Atlanta Hawks and Washington Wizards as Vogel showed extreme rigidity in terms of both rotation and game plan.

Then just last week he failed to go for the kill in a pivotal Game 5 on the road against the Raptors, leaving George on the bench too long as the Pacers watched a double-digit lead vanish in minutes. Indiana might have been preparing for Game 2 of the semifinals instead of letting Vogel walk on Thursday if they had closed things out at the Air Canada Centre.

The team’s “smash-mouth” style, a term first used about the Pacers by Vogel himself, placed a premium on defense, an area they have excelled. Without an elite ability to stop teams (they finished ninth, first, first, seventh and third in points allowed per 100 possessions under Vogel), there is no way he lasts as long as he did. Bird was generous in his praise of Vogel and even emotional at times when discussing his integrity, but took a passive-aggressive swipe at his now former coach when he said: “Our defense with [assistant] Dan Burke has been great like it has every year.” 

Bird has a tremendous basketball mind, but has never looked comfortable in situations like the one we witnessed on Thursday. You could attribute a few of his missteps to that, but he’s also very calculated. He clearly has an affinity for Vogel and insisted he’d give a glowing referral to anyone that calls. However, any goodwill he built for Vogel as he looks for another job was ruined by the revealing comments about a conversation between the two just moments before the decision to move on was made final.

“We talked this morning for probably a half hour on the phone,” Bird said. “He was trying to talk me out of this decision. Frank loves it here. His family loves it. He kept bringing it up, can we sit down and delay the news conference and start all over again. He's gonna be missed.”

The story makes Vogel relatable and human (and perhaps a bit sad) to us all and maybe Bird intended to showcase his loyalty and commitment, but it may not reflect as positively when he inevitably enters into negotiations with another team.

The Pacers went through a number of different machinations this season, often changing style of play and rotation on the fly. The small-ball experiment with George at the four dominated the preseason, but ultimately didn’t sustain itself.  Bird, Vogel and George expressed varying opinions publicly before displaying more of a united front as the season wore on. 

It was clear, however, that Vogel preferred to play with two bigs while Bird dreamed of getting up-and-down quickly to play at a faster pace.

“What we do, me and Frank sit down every summer and strategize how we want to play,” Bird revealed.  “We decided we wanted to play small. I said this before. When the season starts, it's his game, his team, and he has to figure out how to win as many games he possibly can, big or small. He came to me and said, look I feel more comfortable playing with two bigs than small and I said ok. I really felt with Paul coming back from his injury, the four position would be a lot easier for him. He said the banging with the other guys every day would take a lot out of him and he preferred to play the three. That was probably part of the decision that Frank made to play two bigs.”

Bird’s desire to play differently isn’t the issue. The problem is the roster in which Vogel was given to apply the scheme. Monta Ellis, Rodney Stuckey and Solomon Hill, who played significant minutes at wing positions, have never been great shooters. Stuckey can score, but is a career 29.8 percent shooter from three. Ellis has always been up-and-down from deep and Hill only emerged as a three-pointer threat late in the season.

Myles Turner is going to be a big part of whatever the Pacers do going forward and was yet another great mid-first round find by Bird and the rest of the front office.  Bird knew last summer that he wanted to change styles, but drafted Turner and quickly realized his experiment would likely be short-lived.

“The whole year I was waiting on Myles Turner. A lot of people don't think Summer League is valuable. When he was down there last summer, the way he was playing and the way he was dominating, I knew right then that by All-Star break, small ball was probably going to be out the window, if we had it that long,” Bird said. “That kid needed to be playing, he needed to be in there getting experience.” 

So how does that jive with his desire to both change styles and make a playoff run, something he reiterated that was his goal all along? 

Ian Mahinmi was tremendous this season, the final year of his contract before becoming a free agent. If Turner matures as quickly as it appears he will, the Pacers could use him as a stretch five as early as November. However, with Mahinmi under contract and firmly in the rotation for 15-16 Bird had to know he couldn’t ask Vogel to go small and carve out minutes for the rookie.

That’s why Bird first considered a change at midseason, but instead allowed Vogel to finish out the season and even revert back to his preferred two-big style down the stretch and into the playoffs.

Looking back Bird actually showed tremendous restraint with Vogel. He could have simply fired Vogel at midseason in favor of someone that would share his vision of how George and the rest of the roster should be used. Instead, he allowed Vogel to finish out his contract and, in reality, didn’t linger with the decision after the Pacers were eliminated on Sunday night.

Vogel will undoubtedly get another head coaching job, whether it’s right away or in a year’s time. The Pacers don’t have that luxury. The special years of Paul George’s career can’t be wasted (they already lost one) and he possesses a player option for the 18-19 season.

The new voice Bird hires better be able to warm up pretty fast.