Frank Kaminsky's NBA career has hardly gone as planned. A top-10 pick in the 2015 draft after winning National Player of the Year at the University of Wisconsin, Kaminsky was supposed to be an integral cog of the Charlotte Hornets' present and future. Instead, after the team failed to find a trade partner for him before Thursday's deadline, the fourth-year big man is reportedly on the verge of being bought out:
The Hornets were not able to find a trade partner for Frank Kaminsky, source tells SN. He is expected to be a buyout candidate in Charlotte.
— Sean Deveney (@SeanDeveney) February 7, 2019
Kaminsky has fallen out of favor in Charlotte during coach James Borrego's first year with the franchise. He has appeared in just 24 games so far despite being active for the season's entirety, averaging 5.5 points and 2.5 rebounds in 11.3 minutes per game on the rare occasions he has been called off the bench. With Cody Zeller, Bismack Biyombo, and Willy Hernangomez ahead of him among big men and the Hornets routinely playing small with rookie Miles Bridges and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist at power forward, a path to consistent playing time for Kaminsky seems unlikely to materialize over the final third of the season.
The 7-footer was always going to be a tricky fit defensively in the NBA due to his subpar physical tools. Kaminsky was supposed to offset those weaknesses on the other end of the floor, but that has yet to take place. Considered a knockdown shooter during the pre-draft process, he has shot a middling 34.7 percent from beyond the arc for his career, and has shown little ability to create efficient offense from the post, in isolation, or against size mismatches.
There will almost always be a place in the league for big men with legitimate, if streaky, 3-point shooting ability. Unfortunately for Frank Kaminsky, it just happens to be at the end of a team's bench, which is surely where he'll find himself upon reaching a buyout with the Hornets.
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