Frank Kaminsky was one of the more decorated college basketball players heading into the 2015 NBA Draft. During his four years at the University of Wisconsin, he was named 1st Team All Big Ten twice, he won the Big Ten Player of the Year Award, the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar award (nation’s top male center) and was named the National College Player of the year in 2015. After a great college career, his rookie year was really nothing special. How will he do in year two? Let’s dive into that on this week’s edition of “Making the Leap.”
As stated above Kaminsky has had a great college career. Despite not winning the national championship, he was still named College Player of the Year. Due to his age (22 at the time of the draft) people were unsure if he had already reached his ceiling, obviously due to teams drafting players anywhere from 18-20 years old. Kaminsky ended up being taken 9th overall by the Charlotte Hornets.
Like most rookies, he had his ups and downs. However once there were injuries in the Hornets’ rotation Kaminsky earned more minutes and took advantage off them. There were stretches where he was definitely an offensive threat.
How will “Frank the Tank” perform in his sophomore season? (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
Frank Kaminsky 2015-2016 season averages: 7.5 points, 4.1 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 0.5 steals and 0.5 blocks while shooting 41% (including 33.7% from three). Played in 81 games, started in three of them.
His 7.5 points placed him tenth among rookie scoring and with him being relatively healthy the whole season he was second in games played by a rookie. Kaminsky really stepped up this season when the Hornets were facing the Miami Heat in the first round of last years playoffs. He scored only four points total in Games 1 and 2 but went on to score 15 in Game 3 after he was inserted into the starting lineup.
So now for his sophomore year what do we expect? First off, it is good that Charlotte did not go out and find another big man in free agency or the draft. It shows that the team is confident in Kaminsky going forward. This past offseason he had a procedure done to repair a small pocket of air in his chest wall but as far as we know he should be ready to go by the start of training camp.
Look for Frank Kaminsky to play a lot of the center spot this season now that Al Jefferson is gone. He has the offensive skills to become great scoring option but needs to work on his defense to be a more reliable player.
