A former Los Angeles Lakers championship-winning head coach, who had already been on Jason Kidd’s Dallas Mavericks staff as a consultant, is assuming a more prominent role.
Frank Vogel is finalizing an agreement to join the Dallas Mavericks as a lead assistant coach under Jason Kidd, sources tell ESPN. The 2020 NBA championship-winning coach is a major addition to the Mavericks staff. pic.twitter.com/P6CtwgyGrX
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 2, 2025
Per Shams Charania of ESPN, Frank Vogel is being named Dallas’ associate head coach ahead of the 2025-26 season.
Vogel won the 2020 title during his first year at the helm of the Lakers, with a lineup fronted by future Hall of Famers LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Kidd at the time was an assistant coach. Now-Mavericks assistant coach Jared Dudley was a deep-bench reserve forward for those championship Lakers.
After Los Angeles made a boneheaded trade for a past-his-prime Russell Westbrook ahead of the 2021-22 season, the team stumbled to a 33-49 record and missed the postseason entirely. L.A. team president Rob Pelinka canned Vogel essentially for Pelinka’s own roster-building blunder.
Vogel went on to serve as the Phoenix Suns’ head coach in 2023-24, and though he led that team — fronted by All-Stars Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, plus pricey former All-Star Bradley Beal — to a 49-33 record, the Suns fell to the Minnesota Timberwolves in a four-game sweep. Suns owner Mat Ishbia fired Vogel after just one season, replacing him with Mike Budenholzer. Phoenix went 36-46 and missed the playoffs in 2024-25, and Ishbia promptly fired Budenholzer.
Prior to his Lakers and Suns stints, Vogel also had served as the longtime head coach of several quality Indiana Pacers clubs, led by All-Stars Paul George, David West and Roy Hibbert, including a pair of clubs that went to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2013 and ’14.
Across his runs with the Pacers, Orlando Magic (let’s just not talk about that), Lakers and Suns, Vogel owns a solid 480-422 regular season coaching record (.532), and went 49-43 in the playoffs.
Marc Stein of The Stein Line notes that Vogel and fellow new assistant coach Jay Triano joining Kidd’s bench represent some seriously seasoned talent.
Former lead Mavericks assistants Sean Sweeney and Alex Jensen have already left Kidd’s staff for other gigs, with Sweeney joining the San Antonio Spurs last month as an assistant and Jensen joining the Utah Utes.
It’s a strange Dallas team, with past-their-prime All-Stars Davis, Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson all hoping to win now, and 18-year-old No. 1 draft pick Cooper Flagg hoping for a big role. Irving is already hurt, and will likely take much of the 2025-26 season to recuperate from an ACL tear.
