Suns mirror Lakers scapegoating Frank Vogel after one season 'below expectations'

The Frank Vogel era with the Phoenix Suns lasted just one season, without a playoff victory to show for it.

We can now start calling Vogel a professional scapegoat after he was fired on Thursday.

"We are here to win a championship and last season was way below our expectations," general manager James Jones wrote in a press release announcing the firing.

Frank Vogel couldn't make lemonade out of the Suns' lemons

The Suns' championship aspirations were born out of the assembly of a new Big 3 in Phoenix. Devin Booker was joined by Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal to form what the team obviously hoped would be a contender.

The trio never seemed to click though. The Suns won 49 games, finishing second in the Pacific Division and securing the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference.

Hopes that they would turn it on in the postseason were quickly crushed by the red hot Minnesota Timberwolves, who pulled off a sweep.

Jones and Suns owner Matt Isbia passed the buck along to Vogel, blaming him for the way things went south this season. There's no reason to cape for Vogel here. His team was awful in the fourth quarter all season. He could have done more as a coach.

At the same time, Vogel was cooking with what the front office gave him. It's not exactly fair to fire a chef for not producing a five-star meal when you spent all your money on truffles and stuck him in a kitchen with a broken stove and bare cupboards apart from a box of saltine crackers.

The team building in Phoenix was questionable at best. Trades for super stars left zero depth and they basically decided not to invest in a point guard to run the show.

So like the Lakers before them, the Suns have put all the blame on Vogel while deflecting all culpability from the people creating the roster.