And yet Frank Vogel doesn’t know who his employer will be next year.

Rumored Indiana coaching candidates Rick Adelman and Chuck Person remain available (though the Rifleman is looking elsewhere for a lateral move), but based upon everything we have heard from Mike Wells of the Indy Star and others, it seems as though Vogel will return the Pacers bench next season. The only hurdle to that becoming reality — that we have heard publicly — has been management’s insistence upon Vogel to rounding up an expert staff of assistants for offset his inexperience.

Wells has been reporting this fact frequently, most recently in a Q&A he did for the Star.

Bird’s waiting for Vogel to line up his coaching staff. Bird’s more worried about who the lead assistant will be. He wants somebody who has a lot of NBA experience to help Vogel out coaching wise and in the locker room.

There’s a possibility that the coaching situation could be resolved sometime soon because owner Herb Simon returned to Indianapolis this week and will likely be here through the draft.

Not many people thought the Pacers would still be waiting to name a coach in the second week of June.

On the one hand, it is nice that the Pacers have had the luxury of thoroughly assessing everything surrounding this decision. Bird has long talked about how the opportunity to have so many franchise-renewing decisions this summer — on management, coaching, the draft and free agency — has been three years in the making. Obviously, you don’t want to squander that opportunity. So deliberation and diligence are good things. Perhaps the position still remains vacant because Bird was hoping to get a chance to talk to the one guy he was considering who had so far been unavailable for an interview (Mavs assistant coach Dwane Casey)? Or not. Who knows? If so, it’s moot now because Casey will be head coaching in Toronto.

But on the other hand, it is a little disconcerting that the team has felt so comfortable with the fact that no other team would hire Vogel that they can just sit on their hands this long. What does that say about Frank? Or even if they didn’t think no team would hire Vogel, they at least haven’t seemed particularly concerned with losing out on the chance to get him back on the sidelines.

Or perhaps they are waiting until after the draft to make a decision? Or until after the lockout? I’m not sure why either would be particularly beneficial unless there are fiscal realities that fly over my head. Could be. I’m not that smart.

But at this point, of course Vogel is still the frontrunner.

No one else is left.

In Indiana, the seat that is technically vacant is likely to be occupied by Frank Vogel next season as well. According to a source close to that process, the final decision has not been made but the odds are good that the interim coach is given a one-year deal.

Interesante.

And weird.

If you’re going to hire the guy, I would think you hire him. Ya know, give him three, or at least two, years as a vote of confidence — something that sends a message both to Vogel and his players. In the background, if there is actually trepidation, perhaps you do keep a short leash and can the guy after one year if the record doesn’t reflect management’s expectations. I know this franchise has greater financial pressures upon it than most, but it’s not as if Vogel will be getting serious money per season, so Herb Simon likely wouldn’t be losing a huge sum even if they signed Vogel to a three-year deal and then Bird fired him 12 months later. That would seemingly be one of the pros on the “hire Vogel” side of the ledger: he has very little head coaching experience and is likely very hungry to secure his first official job so the team has financial leverage in contract negotiations.

I would come as no surprise that the Pacers could use that leverage to get Vogel to sign a “show and prove” one-year deal, but the statement that management makes by inking him to a one-year deal would be rather curious and I wouldn’t know what to think about it. Amick is usually pretty spot on, but I guess we wait-and-see what happens before discussing it further.

In other news, Rick Adelman is a name popping up more and more often.

At Bird’s press conference this morning, he told Mike Wells that he would “probably” call the now-out-of-work former Rockets, Kings, Warriors and Blazers — and future Hall of Fame — coach who has a career 945-616 record (.605).

Bird said he’ll probably make a call to Rick Adelman about the coaching position

In some follow-up tweets, Wells seems skeptical that Adelman would have serious interest, both from the perspective that Adelman would like to go to — and is being coveted by — better teams and that a coach of Rick’s status may not even want to interview for a job when Vogel has already been described as a “front runner.”

Who knows what to make of all this? I’m purely speculating here, but perhaps Bird would like Adelman in an ideal world but believes that’s essentially his “reach school” and is therefore fine with seeing what Vogel can do with his own team after (hopefully) a training camp — but is only ready to commit half-heartedly with a one-year deal.

Or perhaps he loves Vogel but is just doing some due diligence by checking out the other options around before he hands Frank the keys?

We’ll find out eventually.