Charlotte Hornets: Expectations For Frank Kaminsky’s Rookie Season

By Nathan Grubel | Sep 5, 2015

Jun 25, 2015; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Frank Kaminsky (Wisconsin) greets NBA commissioner Adam Silver after being selected as the number nine overall pick to the Charlotte Hornets in the first round of the 2015 NBA Draft at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports /

Frank Kaminsky received a surprising amount of attention in the 2015 NBA draft for a player who stayed for four years in college.

Nowadays, teams tend to draft in the lottery based on upside, which has a lot to do with age. The younger a player is, the longer they have to learn and perfect their skills before they hit their “prime.”

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Nevertheless, Kaminsky is a solid prospect for a Charlotte Hornets team that isn’t looking to develop players at the moment. They’re looking to win now, a big reason why they traded their draft pick from last year, Noah Vonleh, who’s raw at the moment but has great upside of his own because of his young age.

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Kaminsky is the kind of experienced player that can step in and help a franchise out right away. At least that’s what the Hornets are hoping for.

Let’s take a look at how I see Kaminsky’s first year in the league playing out.

Offense

Kaminsky’s game is all driven by his offensive talent. At 7-feet tall, he’s a potent inside-outside scoring threat capable of putting the ball in the basket from any spot on the floor.

He best operates facing his man up and either firing the jump shot or attacking the basket and looking for contact on his way to the rim.

Kaminsky isn’t afraid to go inside and score against stronger players. He may not be the best athlete, but he has enough skill and can provide Charlotte with enough versatility to justify his selection at the ninth overall spot in the draft.

Kemba Walker is one of the more underrated pick-and-roll point guards in the league, and having a pick-and-pop option like Kaminsky makes the Hornets’ offense that much more dangerous because of the presence of Al Jefferson.

Jefferson already provides Walker with a big body to play pick-and-roll off of given Jefferson’s great inside scoring game. Being able to play either style at the top of the key gives Walker necessary freedom and space to take advantage of his one-on-one scoring from the mid-range.

Walker has a nasty pull-up jumper and isn’t a shabby finisher at the rim either, so giving him room to operate is important for the Hornets, and that’s just what Kaminsky allows them to do.

At Wisconsin, Kaminsky was a deadly sniper from beyond the arc with a career 36.9 percentage, shooting 41.7 percent from three in his final year in college.

Spacing is everything in today’s NBA, and with a player like Jefferson who takes up so much space down low, it’s important to have a stretch 4 that can hit shots from outside and be effective on offense. The Hornets have never been the best offensive team, so adding a scorer like Kaminsky could potentially be huge for them down the stretch if he pans out like management thinks he will.

Defense

Defensively, there’s nothing that Kaminsky is going to offer the Hornets outside of limited rim protection. When he has the chance to contest a shot, he’s a difference maker because of his size, but he doesn’t have great awareness on defense to be consistently helping and making plays on that end of the floor.

As said before, he’s not an excellent athlete, so one-on-one defense in the post is going to be a challenge for him at times, but he’s not there to be a stopper in the paint.

If there’s any consolation prize to him not being the best defender, it would be that he has rebounded well for his position. He averaged 8.2 rebounds per game in his senior season, which fits nicely with what the Hornets want to do with having a solid rebounding foundation with Jefferson and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist already in place.

Conclusion

Kaminsky should prove to provide some versatility for the Hornets on offense, but don’t expect star-quality numbers from him in his first season.

This team’s offense will still run through the Walker-Jefferson pick-and-roll combo, but when the defense clogs up the lane Kaminsky will serve as a nice target to throw the ball to on the outside given that the Hornets don’t really have many other spot-up shooting options.

Defensively, the Hornets still won’t be getting much out of the power forward position, but head coach Steve Clifford has been known for getting the most out of his team defensively, so maybe he can even work to remedy some of Kaminsky’s weaknesses.

Expect a solid year from Kaminsky, just not a great one.

Predicted 2015-16 Stat Line: 12.3 PPG, 6.4 RPG, 49 FG%, 38 3P%, 1.0 BLK

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