Badgers' Kaminsky a star who hates the spotlight, knows it's on him
ROSEMONT, Ill. -- Tape recorders and bright camera lights surrounded an open seat at a table reserved for Frank Kaminsky inside a hotel ballroom Thursday morning. Kaminsky, spotting the media frenzy he was about to encounter, instead veered off to lean his 7-foot frame against a wall next to the table, alone with his thoughts for a few more seconds.
"I see you guys enough already," Kaminsky said to the assembled group at the Big Ten's basketball media day, and it was difficult to determine whether his comment should be taken as serious or as lighthearted banter.
You may know Kaminsky as the breakout star of college basketball. His 28-point, 11-rebound effort during Wisconsin's 64-63 overtime victory against Arizona in the Elite Eight last March propelled him to national stardom. For his performance, he earned the West Region's most outstanding player award and became a viable early NBA draft candidate before he opted to return for his senior season.
But what you may not know about Kaminsky is that he just might be the most reluctant star in his sport this season. Give him a basketball and he knows exactly what to do. Give him attention and he is decidedly less certain.
"I don't necessarily like talking and having people surround me," said Kaminsky, who was selected as the Big Ten's unanimous preseason player of the year on Thursday. "But at the end of the day, I don't hate it as much as I used to. I hate it less than I did.
"I still hate it, though."
Kaminsky can be quirky and goofy, and he fears misspeaking in public, which adds to his trepidation in dealing with reporters. But he also is refreshingly candid with a lively personality that makes him difficult to ignore.
The fact Kaminsky happens to be one of the top players in college basketball means ignoring him is entirely out of the question -- even if he'd prefer just that.
"That's just Frank," Wisconsin forward Sam Dekker said. "He's a different type of guy. You've got to take that with a grain of salt. Hopefully it doesn't offend anybody. He's a good guy. He's just a goofball, and he's different than everybody else, and I think that's what makes him good. He's different on the court, different off the court."
Gift and curse
Part of what makes Kaminsky's story special is that he did not grow up receiving the type of publicity that comes with some high-level Division I basketball recruits, and in that way, he never became used to the spotlight at Benet Academy in Lisle, Ill. His most significant college scholarship offer outside Wisconsin was from Northwestern; the rest included DePaul, Northern Illinois, Southern Illinois and Bradley.
Even when he arrived on campus in Madison, Kaminsky was an unknown commodity in many basketball circles. During his first two seasons at Wisconsin, he averaged only 8.9 minutes per game while playing behind starting center Jared Berggren.
"I had people say, 'Where did Frank Kaminsky transfer from?'" Badgers coach Bo Ryan said. "I'm like, 'What? He was in our program.' There was some guy that was keeping him off the court, and it wasn't me. It was Jared Berggren."
Kaminsky thrived a year ago when he became a full-time starter for the first time in his college career, using the skills he honed while battling Berggren in practice. Four games into the season, Kaminsky drilled all six of his 3-point attempts and scored a school-record 43 points against North Dakota in only 28 minutes. But the run that transformed Kaminsky into a campus-wide celebrity and beyond began in March, when Wisconsin put together a magical push to the Final Four.
He scored a team-high 19 points during a nail-biting Round of 32 NCAA tournament victory against Oregon. He led the Badgers again with 19 points and dominated the paint with six blocks in a Sweet 16 dismantling of Baylor. And he remained the best player on the floor in the Elite Eight against Arizona, which vaulted him into the national consciousness.
"It's weird," Kaminsky said. "It's different. I didn't know what to expect when I got to Wisconsin, what was going to happen with me, what I was going to be able to achieve. And to go from unknown to the celebrity in the room, it's kind of weird. I'm the kind of person that hates attention. It's fun, but it's not fun at the same time."
In the week leading up to the Final Four, Kaminsky and teammate Josh Gasser found themselves on the cover of Sports Illustrated, hands raised in triumph while celebrating their spellbinding victory over Arizona. It is a moment in time Kaminsky keeps with him daily, the picture scaled down and pasted to the back of his cell phone -- a gift from his mom, he said.
In many ways, Kaminsky considers his ascension both a gift and a curse. He says it feels good to know his hard work has paid off and that people go out of their way to say nice things to him. But those accolades don't help Wisconsin win basketball games, and all they really do is create a potential distraction for a man who would rather place the focus elsewhere.
"It's definitely different for him," Gasser said. "He's a goofball. He likes to joke around and have fun. It's hard at times when you've got all these people around campus talking to you everywhere you go. Sometimes you just want to be isolated, be alone."
So, how has Kaminsky handled the extra attention when he walks around campus this year? Well . . .
"I don't do it," he said. "I try not to do it. I'm always on my moped."
'A matchup nightmare'
While Kaminsky's uneasiness for flattery off the court is evident, his play on the court demands that he be noticed -- something that has created a unique dichotomy in his life. He is the rare 7-footer who can step out and consistently knock down 3-pointers, which makes him a perfect fit for Ryan's team-oriented, ball-sharing offensive system. He can score inside, stretch defenses to the perimeter and pass exceptionally well, an uncommon big man with more assists than turnovers.
"He's not really a center," said Nebraska's Terran Petteway, a preseason first-team all-conference pick alongside Kaminsky. "He's a 7-foot guy who can shoot outside. When you have that, man, that's tough to guard. He just creates problems all over the floor."
A recent article published by Bleacher Report listed Kaminsky as the most fundamentally sound player in college basketball because he was "the central figure in the nation's most fundamentally sound team." The listing added that "there wasn't a weakness" to Kaminsky's game.
Fellow Big Ten players and coaches certainly have taken notice of his versatility, toughness and patience on the court.
"He's a veteran who understands the game," Nebraska forward Walter Pitchford said. "Somebody brought to my attention that Frank was the No. 1 most fundamental player in the country on that ranking. I was just like, 'Oh, well that makes sense to me.' He's an old bull. He's not rushing to do things."
Last season, Kaminsky made 37.8 percent of his 3-pointers, which ranked fourth on the team among regular rotation players. He led Wisconsin in scoring (13.9 points) and rebounding (6.3) and posted the third-highest block total in program history (66).
Those totals leave some to ponder what the heck he has in store for an encore.
"He's a matchup nightmare," Minnesota coach Richard Pitino said. "What do you do? Do you switch a pick-and-roll with my 5-9 guy on to a 7-footer? I don't want to see that. You've got to figure it out because it's hard. I was rooting for him to go pro."
The next step
The pro dilemma was one Kaminsky had not anticipated experiencing this past spring. After all, how many guys who play less than 10 minutes a game over two seasons become viable first-round draft picks a year later?
But the NCAA tournament changed Kaminsky's potential career arc, quickening the urgency with which he needed to consider his options. Some mock drafts listed him as a late first-rounder, while others considered him a second-round pick.
"It's always been a goal of mine to play at the next level," Kaminsky said. "To perform the way I did in the tournament, then have people talk about me in the way that they did was almost like a dream come true. But at the end of the day, Wisconsin's been so great to me. I've built a great relationship with people and I'm so close to getting my degree. So I just couldn't see myself leaving all that behind just to go take some money."
The decision, it turns out, was not as difficult as some might have expected.
"I'll take you to a quote my dad gave me when I was in maybe fifth grade," Kaminsky said. "If the team's winning, then everybody wins. That's kind of how I've approached things since. Growing up with a dad who was my coach, my mentor for so long, he's taught me so many different things. I knew at the end of the day when I was talking to my dad that I wanted to come back. He just kind of reassured that to me."
Now, Kaminsky's goal is to become the best player he can be for a team with legitimate national title aspirations -- Wisconsin is the unanimous Big Ten favorite and is ranked No. 4 in the preseason coaches top-25 poll. He is the type of person who would rather score two points and win than score 32 and lose. But teammates expect far more good games out of him than performances to forget.
"You get him the ball in a one-on-one situation on the block, it's over," Gasser said. "He's kind of demanding the ball more and wanting to be our No. 1 option more so than in the past. I think he's realized how talented he is. It took him a couple years to kind of realize how good of a player he is. Once he got that, once he got some confidence, he's kind of taken off."
Ryan noted Kaminsky had most improved his counter moves in the post, which Ryan believes will lead to more aggression at the rim and more free throw opportunities. Kaminsky said he had become more mentally prepared to handle every situation, pointing to a sub-par game against Kentucky in the Final Four as his own motivation.
NBA scouts, meanwhile, routinely have surfaced at Wisconsin's practices this October. One mock draft website, DraftExpress.com, lists Kaminsky as the No. 23 prospect in the 2015 draft.
In true Kaminsky fashion, he downplayed the presence of any scouts, saying instead that they were there to watch Dekker, another player with a potentially bright NBA future. All Kaminsky cares about is helping Wisconsin earn another opportunity at a special season.
"All these people can have expectations from us and try to pick where we're going to finish, but at the end of the day, that doesn't really mean much to us," Kaminsky said. "Because we have our own expectations and things we want to accomplish. I think getting back to a Final Four is one of those big accomplishments and taking that next step of getting into the national title game and winning the national title game."
If Wisconsin achieves those goals, Kaminsky will be leading the way -- a reluctant superstar who surely won't be able to hide from the spotlight much longer.
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