Charlotte Hornets: Frank Kaminsky frustrated with disappointing season
Frank Kaminsky voiced his frustrations with the Charlotte Hornets’ down year and Steve Clifford being fired as a result.
The fans weren’t the only ones frustrated with the way the Charlotte Hornets finished the 2017-18 season. They were 10 games under .500 and missed the playoffs for the second year in a row. Frank Kaminsky isn’t happy about the way the campaign went and is disappointed that their poor season resulted in Steve Clifford being let go.
Kaminsky told NBC Charlotte that Coach Clifford being fired was a “shock” and that “Having the whole organization kind of change in such a short amount of time because you didn’t play to expectations is really frustrating as a player.”
Frank added that Clifford always wanted to be the fall guy which is true because Steve took responsibility for his team’s downfalls on multiple occasions. The 24-year old said that “it’s just frustrating as a player knowing that we didn’t play up to expectations and play up to things that were laid out for us so he could be successful as a coach.”
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Charlotte’s poor season resulted in not only Steve Clifford being fired but GM Rich Cho as well. Not to mention that Mitch Kupchak cleaned house when he let go of most of the Hornets’ training staff and analytics department.
A number of players struggled this year including Kaminsky who took a bit of a step back in his development. The third-year player’s scoring dropped from 11.7 points per game last season to only 11.1 per game this campaign. His rebounds, assists, blocks and steals also fell. The only improvement he made was in his shooting which jumped from 39.9% FG/ 32.8% 3P/ 75.6% FT to 42.9% FG/ 38% 3P/ 79.9% FT.
Looking towards the future, Kaminsky talked a bit about the Hornets’ new general manager Mitch Kupchak and said that “There’s really no sense of direction as to what was going to happen, obviously he’s a winner. He’s been around a lot of winning cultures as a GM. Hopefully he can bring that to us.”
I think the most interesting part of his responses was that there is no sense of direction or at least not one that was shared to either Kaminsky or the media. While I’m sure Kupchak knows what he wants to do with the team, he may not have told his plans to Frank during their meeting at the end of the regular season.
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Frank Kaminsky and the Charlotte Hornets will look to have a bounce-back year next season with a new GM and head coach at the helm. Steve Clifford’s firing was a direct result of an underachieving team. Whether it be his fault or not, “The Tank” seems to be putting the blame on himself and other players for not reaching their expectations.