September 22, 2020 • 47 mins
Warning: this episode is not for the weak of heart...or stomach. From stories of Steve’s questionable coaching tactics to our guest’s journey to the NBA, you’ll probably need some tissues handy. And maybe stay away from Sunny D for a while. This episode, we “Cut To It” with Frank Kaminsky--former 9th overall NBA draft pick and current player for the Phoenix Suns.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is cut to it with Steve Smith Senior at
production of The Black Effect and I Heart Radio. I'm
Steve Smith Senior and I'm John and this is cut
to it. Good do it, Good do it. That's getting
down to do it. Good do it. We asked the
questions you always want to know, but no one ever asked,
(00:24):
let's cut to it. You ain't heard him about it,
then we're about to let you know. It's all you
grabbing food today. Yes, that's what you're doing. See she
(00:44):
is working well, Steve. I don't know where that came from.
I like the Yeah, how are you doing? I'm doing great? Man,
And I'm sitting here thinking there was an incident. Man,
this was a few years ago. Yeah, with your football camp.
What about your last football camp that you did here
in Charlotte, Right, it wasn't my last second of last
(01:05):
one one up. I know it was a few years ago. Um,
you gotta tell it though, but just in terms of
starting beverage and happened with some of the kids. It's
just a funny story, man. So so I used to
do football camp here in Charlotte, and then also, uh,
you're here too. As we go down, Um, I've done
football camps UM on military basis as well. I've done it,
(01:28):
and UM Cam Humphreys, which is overseas. Cam Humphreys is
actually uh several miles away from the d militarized Zone
near South Korea, right, So I've been in Hawaii, Frankfurt, Germany,
(01:48):
so I've I've I've had the honor to serve the
military's kids all over. But so I do. I But
I always had a camp for about nine almost ten
years here in Charlott that that I was doing, and
so we had a lot of different sponsors that would
come on board. And so one of our sponsors, UH
for the for our camp was Sunny Delight. Now, if
(02:11):
anybody has ever been in the South beverage sponsors, So
if anybody has been in the South of North Carolina
in July, is hot as fish grease. And when I
say fish grease, you can put them until I drop
that toy in there, and that grease is gonna be
all over. So anyway, so we're out there and it's
(02:34):
probably ninety five degrees with UH humidity, so it's equivalent
to about a hundred into degrees hot. You're so hot
on the pavement you can see the heat, the heat
rising on the just going on the top of the asphalt.
So we're out here about two d plus kids. And
(02:57):
so we have a water break, not a regular water break.
We have a sunny D. We're providing sunny D light
to the children. And let me tell you what happened.
Was sunny D man. Sunny D was sniper and these
kids left and right. Why because sunny D is not
(03:18):
real orange juice. So it's not sunny D has less.
I think it has tim percent orange juice, the orange
k the ninety percent of the other juice. It's stuff.
And it's not a drink or juice. It's it's a drink.
And we all know what happens when you drink too
(03:38):
much drink. That he got to bubbling these kids. What
they weren't passing out? You know how they were losing
in the football camp. We were losing the kids by vomit.
These kids, these kids were running routes, curling and just
(04:02):
falling out. We had about twenty kids stopped. Now you
gotta imagine when the kids stopped because you got bubble guts.
I think I got it. I don't feel well, I
don't feel so good. I made an executive decision no
more Sunday Kids. And I love the financial commitment. I
(04:27):
love the product. Kids out here hurting, but we got
to get this Sunday out of here just for everybody.
They weren't padded, It's just some shorts, two of shorts, right,
It's just it's not full contact. That I don't believe
having full contact. The way you introduced kids on plane
(04:48):
is you don't. You let them gradually acclimate to getting hit,
But you don't. You don't teach a little kid how
to catch a football when he knows that the next
lout kickly is playing middle linebacker on the field. It's
really hard to keep up focus on the ball when
you're about to get your ribs broken. Right, And Bro,
(05:11):
we were losing kids. I'm talking about so that literally
the next day, two day, two day came, three day.
Cam we literally the next day, I said, Bro, we
took all they d because it was not it was
not providing the hydration. Dog Day was dying. We was
losing kids left and around. I mean we had we
lost twenty, like twenty kids just did not show up
the next day like Sunny d took out You know
(05:33):
what they talked about all the turf monster real it
was awful. Over The sad part is you know, I
gott drink the product. I don't drinking that product. I
start and you know started, you toube and I don't start.
You can get this. That's the lily stomach. It was hurt.
(05:57):
Sunny D athletics and running around not not the best combo.
Listen sunny D not ever ever, ever, ever ever show
athletic sport and drinking after quenchy your thirsty was a
sunny D would be your last sport. So that that's
the sunny D story. But man tell her his day. Bro,
(06:19):
it was my son. He was like, yeah, dadda. When
I saw Kevin, I was like, yeah, I gotta stop
drinking the sunny because it was free. So they gave
us case case like we were giving it was like
two D fifty kids. Each kid got two Sunnyds to
take on. We had like four hundred sunny D's, but
we dumped them. We had to dump the product because
(06:42):
it was killing the kids. It was killing That'd be
like I hate to say, that'd be like giving kids
Mexican food to go play sports, like Bro can you
imagine you drop this, bro? Can you imagine running a
post route after eating a baby? Though I don't really
want to? Probably you made that It's gonna be the last.
(07:05):
Don't let that quarterback lead you into a messy situation.
Oh man, we might have cut through it with our
next guest man. Yes, sir, who do we have? Frank Kamensky,
first round pick from Charlotte Hornet's currently playing with the
Phoenix Suns, graduate of Wisconsin University, back to back final fours.
(07:27):
He won the Nate Smith Award, the Wooden Award. Frank Kamenski,
You're gonna take part and get iced up. It is
our own version of our Icebreaker. There random questions that
we've selected. Smitty may or may not have a follow up.
(07:48):
He may have a follow up. Have no idea that
you have not to receive these questions prior not ann
clue prior to this podcast. Have you no okay? I
heard they were good? Oh, I heard they were all right?
First one, your first concert? Um it was a Drake concert,
(08:09):
oh telling of his age. So you have an opportunity
to fight a bear or seventy five ducks. I think
I'd rather go with fighting the bear, fighting fighting seventy
of anything is just difficult. Okay. Plus I just got
this image of seven ft tall find commins keep trying
(08:32):
to fight ducks. How do you take your coffee black
with a little bit of sugar? Favorite breakfast food, favorite
breakfast food, pancakes? All right? And then Marvel the DC
Marvel without question, although I think DC has DC has
some good stuff, but Marvel's just topped the bottom is
(08:52):
a way better. M Okay, no no argument on that one.
Last few movies with trash, just it was absolute trash.
So Kaminski, what nationality is Kaminski? It's Polish. Kaminski is Polish.
But I've got everything. I'm like Irish, German, Polish, Serbian, Russian,
(09:15):
I don't know we we come when we live in Chicago.
All families are kind of like that. A lot of
European stuff down down with the squirrel Franks. So where
did your family? How does your family get to Chicago? Then? So,
my dad's all four of his grandparents came from somewhere
(09:38):
in Europe. Um his dad's parents came from Poland, and
his mom's parents, his mom's dad came from Serbia and
his mom's mom, I believe, I'm not quite positive where
she came from. And then my mom's side of the
(09:58):
family is all Ireland pretty much. Why have you been
considering playing for the Serbian national team? You know, obviously
the opportunity is it presented itself. I went and did
the Basketball Without Borders trip for the NBA, which is, UM,
you know, you go overseas and UM, you know, basically
run a camp for the top European players. UM. You
(10:20):
know a lot of the guys who are in the
NBA have gone through that pipeline. UM. And it was
in Serbia. And obviously I've been I played in a
Serbian basketball league growing up. A lot of people know
I have Serbian roots. So UM kind of felt the
pressure while I was over there, UM, you know, considering
I haven't played for Team USA or anything like that,
UM to potentially play for Serbia. So you said you
(10:44):
pay for a Serbian team when you were when you
were younger. UM. So there's a league in Chicago. It's
called the Serbian National Federation. UM. It's in Chicago and
Northwest Indiana primarily, but the tournaments are pretty much nationwide. UM.
They're held in different places. Um, you know, every single
year they pick a different place. It's it's been in
(11:05):
so many different places. It's even been in Canada a
couple of times. Um, it's just one big weekend. Um.
Everybody plays for their uh pretty much their church. Um.
So my dad, you know, he's been playing it, played
in it for a really long time. It was a
Serbian church league. Yeah, essentially, um, you know, and there's
(11:28):
been a lot of good players that have played in it,
a lot of guys that have played Division one basketball. So, um,
it was really good competition growing up. It's always fun.
It's like a big weekend of like basically celebrating and
playing basketball. So it is. It is essentially a giant
church league because, um, the churches do a lot of
sponsoring for this stuff. But I'll tell you right now,
(11:49):
it's mainly about eating, drinking and then playing basketball. I
was just doing the eating and playing basketball at that point.
I wasn't doing the the drinking so much. I played
in it for when I was in fourth grade all
the way through my senior year in high school. So okay,
fourth grade through senior of high school. None of just
because you were extremely tall. None of those are legally
(12:12):
drinking ages for this church weekend that you participated in.
I'm sure if it was back in Serbia would have
been a lot cooler than it would have been. Let's
cut two. And what was it like going up in Chicago?
And what part of Chicago? So we're from the South Side.
We're White Sox fans, like right where the whites, the
(12:34):
Chicago White Sox play. The stadium is where my family
grew up, a couple of blocks away. Um, when my
parents started having kids and moved out into the suburbs,
which is what a lot of Chicago people do. So
I grew up in the suburbs. Um, Chicago is awesome,
It's amazing. You know that. That's where I spend my summers. Um,
(12:54):
I spent it in downtown Chicago. Um. You know, it's
just a really fast paced city and it's what I'm
used to. It definitely toughens you up though, being a
Midwest kid, you know, having those seasonal changes. You know,
Chicago is cold. You know, I'm out in Phoenix right now,
and I feel like I'm spoiled because it's perfect weather.
Minus it gets a little bit too hot here, but
it's perfect weather. Y're around, so you know, Chicago will
(13:17):
always have such a special place in my heart. What
do you mean by a tough and jo up, It's
kind of hard to describe just the way Chicago people are,
you know, just like what you deal with, what you
deal with with the weather, how cold it is, you know,
just people's personalities, like they're they're tough people. I'm a
West Coast guy, so it grew up in Los Angeles,
so you're always in a hurry, you know, and and
(13:39):
living here in Charlotte, and then you know, traveling to
the East coast New York. You know, I'm always interested
to hear how you know, different people, what do they
mean by, you know, tough as far as in Chicago,
because you know, you know, if you go to New York,
you know there's some people in New York that can
be pretty rude. But living here in the South, when
(14:02):
you open a door for a lady or or a
woman in New York, they think you're trying to rob
the right. So that's what I'm trying to I'm trying
to picture how how when you say it's tough, but
it's what's tough Chicago style, the way everyone kind of
fights for everything. You know what I mean, Um, everything
is in Chicago. Everything is a competition. Everything no questions
(14:24):
asked about it. Whether it's conversations, sports, you know, whatever,
you whatever you have, everything is essentially like it's like
a race to the finish line. You know. That's great
when you're when you when you grow up playing basketball
and playing sports, you know, having that competition you know
pretty much everywhere you turn. You know, you can go
play in a tournament, in a league and anything anywhere,
(14:45):
and it's really good competition. You know. And then on
the outside, like personality wise, you know, it kind of
really prepares you to go out into the world and
you know, you kind of for lack of a better word,
you don't take ship from anybody just talking about you
mean from Chicago. You can tell the pride and you know,
you're a basketball player and there's a ton of successful
basketball players, Dwyane Wade, Mark Aguar, you know, Derek Rose.
(15:09):
There's there's a lot of these guys. And Steve talked about,
you know, making you tough how and Frank comm I'm
playing towards that, like you got a guy like you?
How does Chicago even translating that? When you talk about
how Chicago toughens it up. How did that help you
tough enough when it came to playing basketball and playing
this a au random robbin weekend drinking serbian fest. Um,
(15:36):
I always I'll go back a little bit further. I
always wanted to play basketball. You know, my dad played
basketball overseas for a really long time. Um. You know,
so basketball was kind of in my blood. Um, It's
what I grew up doing, you know, watching my dad play. Uh,
you know, it was the first sport I ever started playing.
You know, it was the first sport I fell in
love with. Um. But when you're in Chicago and you
(15:58):
hear all these names, like you know, I can just
remember I watched Derrick Rose played pretty much all the
way through high school, in college and then get drafted
by the Bulls. Um, you know, he was like an
idol of mine. You know. You see all these great
names that come out of Chicago and have played the sports.
You know, I grew up. I was born in so
I got to in my aunt work for the Bulls.
(16:20):
So I got to see a lot of like Michael
Jordan's was like my first memories were you geeking out
over the last dance. Then my uncle is in the documentary,
so he's the My uncle was a guy that told
Jerry Krause the trade for Dennis Robman. Oh so yeah,
my my uncle is kind of responsible for some of
(16:40):
that stuff. That's what I'm talking about. Uncle. You don't
get that kind of behind the scenes access. Now I
love it. You said that your dad played overseas. What
did your mom do? My mom played volleyball and now
she's a teacher. She played volleyball at Northwestern. I think
they when the big champ can tip twice while she
(17:01):
was there, So she had a really successful career there too.
So athletics is basically my family. So how how are
the family gatherings is corn hoole? Starting with the family
fist fight. Everyone in my family is, like I said,
extremely competitive. It's just like a Chicago thing. Like my
dad still thinks he can My dad sixty five now
he thinks he can still beat me in one on one.
(17:22):
And I think even if he was in a well,
even if he was in a wheelchair, he'd be saying
the same exact thing. Won't smoke. So you guys playing
each other as as you tried that out yet I
won't do it. The last time I played him was
in high school and I beat him badly and I
told him I'm done. I'm done playing him. I don't
want to play him anymore. I let him have it.
(17:42):
He can have it. That didn't go well, he didn't. No,
I'm just like, it's a competitive thing. It's it's just
a competitive thing. Like my dad will always go around
telling everyone he can still beat me in basketball, and
I'll always be resentful. I'll always resent him for doing that,
you know what I mean. I don't know. I don't know.
I gotta I got an awesome relationship with my dad. So, yeah,
(18:05):
you're trying to keep it positive. Yes, I'm trying to
keep it positive. I don't want to call him delusional
or anything. But maybe I might be calling him delusional.
I don't know. You have an awesome podcast, Pros and Joe's,
and it was something on there that you said that
I want to ask you about because it really gave
(18:26):
transparency of who you are. And you talked about how
why you try not to interact with people on social
media a lot. But you said something that was a
little bit of nugget for me, which is you talked
about how some of these these grown men go on
social media and talk about how a professional athlete is
(18:48):
trash or and you'll see that this guy is he's
twenty six years old or whatever however old he is,
and he has three kids and he's talking about Frank
or whoever it is, you know, any any basketball player,
and he's and your and you said, you know, hey,
how about you going to be a dad? And then
you said something, your folks are um divorced, but they
(19:10):
did the best they could and they instilled things into
you that were really good. You know, my parents got
divorced when I was really young. Um, I think I
was in like third grade, and I got me my
older sister and my younger sister. And at the time,
you know, it was it was like so confusing because
I was so young and like at that age, like
(19:32):
especially in school, like people's parents aren't getting divorced where
I'm from, Like the schools we went to, you know,
I grew up going to private schools, and you know,
it felt like everyone had like kind of this perfect
family life, you know, with their parents and everything. When
I was really young, this is how I felt. And
you know, my home was kind of we were like
(19:52):
the family that everyone was kind of talking about, like
parents getting divorced, like tough situation, like how's it handling
on the kids and everything, and um, you know, it
kind of be it becomes part of your identity growing up,
you know, living in a home where you know both
of your parents. You know, I'm living in my mom's house,
you know, not seeing my dad as often as I
(20:14):
wanted to, you know, it's just really difficult. Um. But
sports kind of became the thing that where, no matter
what was happening, you know, with our family and everything,
everything kind of felt normal. Like both of our parents
were there cheering it's on. There was no fighting and
(20:35):
arguing and sporting events. You know, my mom was coaching
me in volleyball, my dad was coaching me in basketball. Um,
and that's where everything just like felt comfortable and made
sense and you didn't have to deal with all the
external problems and fights and arguing and everything that goes
into that. So you know, that's why I've kind of
(20:55):
thrust myself so far into into basketball, or at least
I did when I was younger, because it was really
the place where I felt like the most normal because
when you grow up in a house like that where
your parents can't stand each other, um, makes things a
lot easier for you. Takes a lot of the stress away.
(21:16):
So you know, obviously things are way better now we're
all grown up. They'll have our own lives, Me and
my sisters, um, and my parents got their own thing.
But um, you know, it's definitely definitely something that's been,
you know, an identity of our family for a very
long time. Well, I appreciate you sharing that, and I
(21:39):
also think one of the cool things as you said
something too, it sounds like you use your dad was
your coach, so it was another way to steal some
time with your dad always. Yeah, absolutely, So how much
did your dad contribute to your basketball? I Q? I
(22:00):
mean pretty much everything. Um, you know, he was always
you know, my dad was always my coach. But he
wasn't always like the head coach, you know what I mean.
He wasn't like the He always let other people coach
me because you know, he always felt that it was
best that I deal with other people as opposed to
(22:20):
just dealing with him all the time. And you know,
you know now that I think about it, like I
see a lot of people like their parents are always
like defending them, and like parents are always going to
like coaches and saying like why aren't you playing my
kid more or anything. But that wasn't that wasn't the
way my dad did. And my dad was like, you
gotta figure it out, like if you want to if
you want to play, you gotta play better. If you
(22:41):
want to do this, you gotta do this better. So,
you know, my dad pretty much taught me everything you
know in the sport and pretty much how to deal
with all the problems that come with it, because you know,
he had played basketball for so long, played overseas, played
for in so many different situations, you know, whether good
or bad, so he knew what it was like. And
(23:02):
you know, I'm really lucky I had that growing up
because you know, it wasn't always all rainbows and sunshine
from me. You know, I had a lot of growing problems.
I had a lot of maturity problems when I was
a kid. Obviously, Like I said, you know, when you
grew up in a house like that, you kind of
sometimes deal with maturity problems. Um, So it was just
(23:22):
good to have him use sports as a way to
teach me pretty much everything about life. I mean, we
all we often look about sports being an outlet, right,
and it didn't matter outside of Chicago. You grew up
on South side suburban, so it did it didn't matter.
Sports was literally an outlet for you. Why was that
(23:43):
so important? Like I said, sports was my escape from everything. Um,
you know, no matter what was going on, you know,
family wise, social wise, you know, anything, any problem I
ever had. You know, when I played basketball, they all
just disappeared. And you know, I got to just play
the game that I loved. Got to do something that
(24:03):
I love, you know, whether it's for an hour or
two hours, you know, going for an entire week somewhere
to play in a week long AU tournament, you know,
whatever it is, you know, you just get to escape
from that. And now, like now that it's become like
my career and what I do, basketball still that same
(24:23):
outlet for me today that it was when I was fourteen,
So it's just become part of who I am, and
you know how I deal with a lot of problems.
And you know, I'm very I'm very very thankful that
it's become that for me. Thanks thought, we gotta take
a break reply, I'm going through this currently with my
(24:52):
one of my boys right now, who is in the
last year and a half year, has um basically grew
about six inches in the Smith household. He's becoming the
tallest of us. All I know all about that. How
tall were you your freshman year in high school? I
was six to my freshman year, okay, six six. By
(25:16):
my sophomore year, I left high school at six ten,
and then I grew. I grew another two inches my
freshman year in college. What position were you playing when
you were six to when you were a freshman? I
was a guard when I first got into high school,
I left playing like yeah, and then I went to
(25:36):
playing I went from like playing like a two to
my sophomore year, I was the four, and then the
last two years in high school, I was the center,
and then that's the position I played all the way
through college. And then you know, when I got back
to the NBA. Now I'm back to playing the four,
which is always been the most comfortable position. But you know,
(25:58):
basketball has kind of changed in this and that positions
aren't really what they used to be. So you play
basketball at Wisconsin, and in the first first two years
you averaged you have his three points at one point
six rebounds. Yep. Why what was going on there? Uh? Well,
(26:21):
when I got to college, I still had a lot
of physical maturing to do. Um, I wasn't I wasn't
very strong. Um, I was skinny. I was still kind
of growing into my body. Oh but um there was
an I thought I was gonna red shirt, like right
when I got there. That's what, honestly, I thought was
gonna happen. But the coaches came to me and pretty
(26:41):
much told me like, look, you have an opportunity to play. Um,
it's not gonna be much, but pretty much every game,
you're gonna get a couple of minutes of game here
and there, and that could be valuable experience for when
it's your time to take over. And you know it was.
I was just actually pretty much a backup for somebody
(27:02):
who needed a break right before media time. Ons That's
the best way I can describe it. Um, But I
had so much maturing that I needed to do, both
physically and mentally to be able to, um like take
the leap two becoming what I became in college. Like
I always knew I had something inside of me, Like
(27:27):
like I knew I was going to be a good
player in college. I didn't know which level I would
take it to. But um, you know, that experience of
having to fight for more and more and more as
my career went on kind of made me hungry for
when it was my opportunity. Junior year, you bust out nowhere,
out of nowhere, your point game against North Dakota. Tell
(27:49):
me about that, like you're you're almost like you're you're
coming out party, like you you're breaking out. Tell us
about that game, and then just how did it feel
leading into it, and we'll get into your do you
you're seeing you you were? I think people don't remember
how awesome and amazing of a college basketball player you were.
But we talk about that four or three point game,
you know, the first I think we had like three
(28:10):
games before my forty three point game, and I think
I scored like I want to say, like sixteen points
in like three games, and I just wasn't I just
didn't like know my spots yet, Like I wasn't like
truly comfortable like we had our years. Like in college
you can go overseas and play like a like an
exhibition tour, and I played really really well in those games,
(28:31):
and it was like the leading scorer on our team.
When the first three games of the season came along,
you know, I kind of struggled to get comfortable. Um,
and then I just remember before that North Dakota game,
I was like, this is like we're gonna beat this team.
Just go out there and just play loose and play
free and see what happens pretty much, and then I
(28:53):
just started making. I just started like making everything. So
I don't I don't know. It was just that was
like kind of the game where it all click in
my mind that you know you are good and you
know when you play like you know how to play,
this is what the result can believe. That kind of
gave me the confidence to like keep going forward and
wanting more. What what kind of internal dialogue did you
(29:16):
have that was holding you back? It wasn't that I
wasn't playing well. I see. That's see with basketball, like
sometimes you get obsessed with like points and rebounds and um,
you know, assists and steals and blocks and all these things.
But that's not always an indicator of if you're playing
well or not. Like in our first three games, like
(29:37):
our team played significantly better when I was on the
floor versus when I was off the floor. So like
I was, I was still playing well. I just wasn't scoring.
But you know, my whole basketball life, I've been like
kind of a scorer. So um, you know that's one
thing for me that always it shouldn't be, you know,
(29:58):
an indicator of, you know, in my mind of how
well I'm playing versus like not, but it always will be.
It's something I talked about with my dad too. I
was just playing way too tense, Like I wasn't loosing,
playing free because you know, when I just play free
and don't overthink things. Um, that's when I met my best.
In those first couple of games. I was just like
(30:20):
I wanted to play so well because I wanted to
fit two years of being a backup into basically three games,
as opposed to realizing it was gonna be a long
season and I was gonna have my opportunity to the
whole year. How does march madness? How does that impact
kids today? You know, all my best memories are pretty
(30:40):
much n C Double A tournament. Um, you know, it
is the most it's the most fun you can have
playing college basketball. You know it feels like it feels
like that's when it feels like you become like a
professional player, you know what I mean, Like when you're
playing against um like you're playing in your conference schedule
in everything, and you're playing against all these teams, like
(31:01):
it's it's fun and it's really really great competition, and
winning the Big Ten Championship is was, you know, up
there on the top of the list of accomplishments in college.
But just nothing really compares to playing in the n
C Double A tournament, you know, just from you know,
the traveling, you know, the teams you play against, you know,
being in the region, the tournament, the selection show, the games,
(31:25):
you know, having your basically your travel party, your families,
they're just everything kind of it just feels it's just
an atmosphere that everyone wants to be a part of
so badly. And then you know, once you make it
to the final four and you're playing in front of
sixty seventy thousand people in football arenas, that's when it's
(31:45):
that's when it's like it just like hits you that
this is like this is like the peak of a
lot of different things for you in your life. It's
amazing you were the ninth overall pick by the Charlotte Hornets.
Take us through the drafting process for you being a
(32:06):
ninth pick. So pretty much I played in the National
championship game my senior year, so I'm in the last
game of the season. So like some people would, you know,
just the way pre draft workouts and pretty much I
got back to campus and essentially left immediately to go
train in Santa Barbara. Uh. For like I think it
(32:28):
was like six weeks before the draft happened with the
aging agency or is just just I knew who I
was going to sign with once the season was over,
So pretty much right when I got done, I signed
with my agency the next day, and like two days later,
I was pretty much on a plane and out of there. Um.
And when you get out there, you know, you're obviously
(32:48):
your training, you're going through workouts, um. And then you
start workouts for teams pretty quickly after that. So I
worked out I think for six teams because at that
point you know pretty much you like there's no obviously
there's no guarantee, but you know like what your draft
(33:09):
range is. They give you essentially a draft grade, and
mine was mine was lottery so um, I knew I
was going to go somewhere, you know, one to fifteen.
So you essentially start mapping out the teams do you
think you fit in best for and you start working
out for him. Um, and I ended up working out
for six teams. I think if you work out for
(33:31):
the one, yes and no. I didn't go to Charlotte.
But agencies hold their big workout days, like they have
their days where all the teams come in and watch
you work out. There were scouts or executives from all
thirty teams in Santa Barbara when we held like our
pro day for our agency. I knew Charlotte had a
lot of interest, so there was really not a huge
(33:54):
reason to go to Charlotte and work out for them.
So and then obviously they were the team that ended
up drafting me, but they were at that workout in
UM Santa Barbara, and I knew they had a lot
of interest from there. It's stressful at the same time
because like anything can happen, like a team can have
I'm it's the same. I'm sure it's the same with
the NFL. But like a team can have a player
(34:16):
in mind that if someone before them takes that player,
it completely changes the whole draft from then on out
draft Knight was, I mean, it was I was losing
it there for a little while. I just because you
hear about trades and you know teams are trying to
trade up, trade back. Um, you know this team is
(34:38):
saying they're going to take you at this spot, but
then you never know if that's actually gonna happen or not.
There was just so many scenarios playing in my head
in me like the kind of person I am, I
like just cut and dry, straight to the point. I
don't like the guessing game. And that was the biggest
guessing game I was ever playing in my life, and
I felt like I had no control. When I got
drafted and my name was finally called, it was like
(35:00):
just a big like breath, like finally like a breath
of fresh air, you know what I mean, Because I
had been so on edge for like a week, Because
like you're in New York for like five days leading
up to the draft doing all this stuff, you're just
kind of like on edge, or just my personality type,
I was on edge like pretty much the whole time
(35:21):
I was there. Just wanted to hear my name called
and figure out where I was going to be going.
Describe your relationship with basketball today. Basketball is everything for me. Um,
it's I don't want to say it's like who I
am because there's so many different aspects of my life
(35:42):
that make me who I am. But UM, you know,
I don't get the same amount of enjoyment out of
like a lot of things that I do basketball. So
you know, I just you know, I'm twenty seven now
and five years in. Um, I want to play this
game for as long as I can. UM. I've always
told like my friends and my family like basketball, just
(36:08):
like for me. You know how Vince Carter just played
until he was forty and twenty two, twenty two years.
You know that's gonna be me. You know it might
not be in the NBA, but I'm gonna be playing
basketball until I physically can't anymore. Like that's just how
much it means to me. Like it's It's taken away
so many of the problems that I've ever had in
(36:29):
my life and been like a like it has been
an escape for me and it still is, Like I said,
so you know, I want to keep that a part
of my life for as long as I can. As
I was listening to you talk, you said You're gonna
play as long as you possibly can. It sounded like
another comiskey. I know that sixty five years old, I
(36:51):
am my father's son. I'll say I will say that
I will play basketball. Even if I'm hunched over and
walking up and down the court, I'm still gonna get
out there and fire up a couple three. So I
like that for me playing football. I hated football at times,
I literally frank I hated sometimes the competitiveness. I hated
(37:16):
how it made me feel. At times. I hated the
fact that thurs Days I got up pretty piste off.
You hated the competitveness. I hated the competitiveness because of
what it what I had to awaken inside of me.
A lot of the childhood issues or things that I
experienced at a young age that I don't believe young
(37:37):
men should experience. But it was what God decided to
hand in my path, and it built calcul and to
build a little bit of um hardening of my heart.
But in that, you know, the the butterfly, the calipular.
I woke in with something that I'm pretty proud of.
(37:58):
The day is there times where you wake up, you know,
upset at yourself or upset at basketball. Absolutely. I think
if you love something enough, it frustrates you beyond anything that. Um.
I think a lot of people can understand, Like you
(38:18):
even touched on it, like sometimes you've got to be
in such whether it's a good or a bad mental place. Um,
whatever drives you or whatever motivates you. Sometimes everything that
motivates me isn't positive things. A lot of it's negative stuff.
Like you know, way either way I'm viewed like the
politics of the situation I'm in, you know what, what
(38:40):
something that's going on in like my personal life, you know,
all those things like it's not fun waking up and
like going to playing a game when you know that
you've got to be piste off about something to get
yourself into a place where you feel like you can
go out and like you've got something to prove. Like
that's not always the most fun thing in the world.
You know, that aspect of it is very difficult at
(39:04):
time because it's just it's like sometimes like it's a
cloud over like your entire life. I can relate, you know,
I also revel in that because you know, like when
you go in there and you've got problems or you've
got something that's motivating you, and you go out and
you have a great game, Like the feeling of reward afterwards,
like the the freshness you feel, or the relief that
(39:27):
you feel. You know that that's something I live for.
I know you were enjoying it. So it's not good.
But we need to take a little time. We gotta
pay some bills, use a bathroom, and wash your hands,
and we'll be back in a moment. You're one of
(39:49):
the most decorated college basketball players of all time, but
you're still motivated by the small things. I mean, it's
it's interesting to hear from you what continues to mot
devate you and not just being drafted and being in
the NBA. You're continually motivated day over day and not
letting these accolades define you. The accolades are what they are. Um,
(40:11):
you know, I've always said this. You know, they're they're great,
They're amazing. I'm happy I accomplished them, but that's not
what I've kind of set out for. The thing that
motivates me, the driving factor in the back of my
head is I want to win a championship. You know,
the one thing in college that I didn't get to
add to my resume was national champion. I went to
the two final fours in a row, played in the
(40:32):
national championship game and ended up losing both times. You know,
I want to finish with a championship. I don't have
one yet. That's something that motivates me daily. Oh cut tour.
We have this thing we call deep three. How lonely
(40:52):
is playing professional sports sometimes very lonely, you know, especially
when you're on long road trips and you know, you
know me, I don't have a girlfriend. I don't have fiance,
I don't have a girl. UM, I just got one
friend that lives with me. Um. You know, when you're
far away from your family all the time, UM, it's
definitely difficult. UM, it can get very lonely. But you know,
(41:16):
I'm lucky in the sense that, you know, I have
a lot of people that are always coming out, UM,
you know, come to games, hanging out. You know, my
dad's close to the retirement. UM, so that's something I'm
looking forward to. Is you know, soon my dad will
be out here and then hopefully some of my family
will follow wherever I am, so you know, it can
(41:37):
definitely get really lonely. But you know, the lucky part
of the money situation is you can afford to have people,
you know, especially people that are important to you, be
there when you need them. Why is being authentic so
important to you? You know, just being who you are
is you know, being unapologetically being yourself is something that's
always been extremely important to me. I don't I don't
(42:00):
ever want to change and do another person to appease someone,
you know. I feel like, at this point in my life,
I am who I am and if you don't like
me and you go. If you don't get along with me,
if if we don't see eye to eye, that's just
you know, I'm not gonna I'm not going to change
who I am to make everyone happy, because I just
feel like, at this point in life, you can't make
(42:21):
every you can't satisfy everyone, you can't please everyone. Um,
you gotta do what makes you happy and you're comfortable
and you to be able to live the life that
you want to live when you hang up those sides
six teams, What do you want people to say about
Frank Kamiski? Oh, that's deep, That is a deep question.
(42:50):
You know, that's that's that's hard to answer at this point. Um,
you know whole. I hope that one day that you know,
at least the people close to me, the people who
truly know me and understand me, can sit there and
say he got the most out of everything that was
(43:10):
either given to him or he earned. UM. I think
that's important, UM, because you know, obviously everybody's dealt a
different hand in life. You know, I'm fortunate enough that
I was dealt the height and athletic abilities that I have. UM.
You know, that's a god given talent and I'm very
(43:30):
thankful for it, and I feel like I've utilized it
very well up until this point. But I want to
make sure that you know, every stage of success or
every stage of you know, what I've done in life,
that I've handled it correctly. I think that's the most important,
whether it's you know, how I treat people, I've given back,
(43:51):
you know, how I've pushed myself forward in my career,
how hard I've worked. I want to make sure that
you know, when it's all said and done at you
can all look back and say that I did the
right thing at every step. I worked my hardest and
I got the most out of the situation that I've
been dealt. And and I think I hope other people
(44:13):
perceive me as just, you know, a good guy who
loves playing basketball. I think if everyone saw me that way, No,
I don't need really any other like gratification, you know.
I hope I have that championship that I was talking
about and I can add that to my resume. But um,
as long as people know that I'm a like a
(44:35):
good person who just loves playing the game, that that's
good enough for me. Was there a point in your life?
You know? Can I finish the question? Continue? And from
the top, was there pointing your life you were playing
(44:56):
to escape? And what were you escaping from? Sports helps
you escape everything. You can unplug all together. I don't
care if life is good or bad. You get to
be whatever you are dreaming about at that moment. You
(45:18):
get to act it out in real life. That's why
sports is so captivating. That's why sports is such an
entertainment business. That so many people, so many sponsors, so
many fans, dumped so many dollars into it because I
was always trying to escape, the fact of the matter
is we were poor, we were on section eight on
(45:38):
food stamps. Mom was in some bad relationships and it
reflected us and it impacted us every freaking day of
the week. So yeah, I thrived in sports. Sports was
the only place that I can let my hair down
and and and press forward and kicking, hit and run
and jump in. I wasn't being looked at the wrong way,
(46:03):
and so I I really love sports. I think sports
is one of those places that you can be yourself
for that moment. You can have dialogue and conversations in
your head and no one gets to judge. Here. You
can even respond in a way at times that in
real life is not appropriate, but as sports, it's called passion.
(46:24):
Cut to It with Steve Smith Senior, That Is Me
is a production of Cut to It LLC, Balto Creative Media,
The Black Effect and I Heart Radio. For more podcast
from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio Apple
Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(46:45):
From Cut to It Executive producer Steve Smith, singor co
host Gerard little John, talent in booking manager Joe Fusci,
social media manager Peyton Smith. From Balto Creative Media, Cut
to It is deduced by Brian Faltaschevitch and Meredith Carter,
with production assistance by Alex Lebrek, production manager Sarah Pollock.
(47:08):
Theme music by Alex Johnson, lyrics and vocals by Anthony Hamilton.
You ain't heard about it, then, we're about to let you.
Now it's all
This is cut to it with Steve Smith Senior at
production of The Black Effect and I Heart Radio. I'm
Steve Smith Senior and I'm John and this is cut
to it. Good do it, Good do it. That's getting
down to do it. Good do it. We asked the
questions you always want to know, but no one ever asked,
(00:24):
let's cut to it. You ain't heard him about it,
then we're about to let you know. It's all you
grabbing food today. Yes, that's what you're doing. See she
(00:44):
is working well, Steve. I don't know where that came from.
I like the Yeah, how are you doing? I'm doing great? Man,
And I'm sitting here thinking there was an incident. Man,
this was a few years ago. Yeah, with your football camp.
What about your last football camp that you did here
in Charlotte, Right, it wasn't my last second of last
(01:05):
one one up. I know it was a few years ago. Um,
you gotta tell it though, but just in terms of
starting beverage and happened with some of the kids. It's
just a funny story, man. So so I used to
do football camp here in Charlotte, and then also, uh,
you're here too. As we go down, Um, I've done
football camps UM on military basis as well. I've done it,
(01:28):
and UM Cam Humphreys, which is overseas. Cam Humphreys is
actually uh several miles away from the d militarized Zone
near South Korea, right, So I've been in Hawaii, Frankfurt, Germany,
(01:48):
so I've I've I've had the honor to serve the
military's kids all over. But so I do. I But
I always had a camp for about nine almost ten
years here in Charlott that that I was doing, and
so we had a lot of different sponsors that would
come on board. And so one of our sponsors, UH
for the for our camp was Sunny Delight. Now, if
(02:11):
anybody has ever been in the South beverage sponsors, So
if anybody has been in the South of North Carolina
in July, is hot as fish grease. And when I
say fish grease, you can put them until I drop
that toy in there, and that grease is gonna be
all over. So anyway, so we're out there and it's
(02:34):
probably ninety five degrees with UH humidity, so it's equivalent
to about a hundred into degrees hot. You're so hot
on the pavement you can see the heat, the heat
rising on the just going on the top of the asphalt.
So we're out here about two d plus kids. And
(02:57):
so we have a water break, not a regular water break.
We have a sunny D. We're providing sunny D light
to the children. And let me tell you what happened.
Was sunny D man. Sunny D was sniper and these
kids left and right. Why because sunny D is not
(03:18):
real orange juice. So it's not sunny D has less.
I think it has tim percent orange juice, the orange
k the ninety percent of the other juice. It's stuff.
And it's not a drink or juice. It's it's a drink.
And we all know what happens when you drink too
(03:38):
much drink. That he got to bubbling these kids. What
they weren't passing out? You know how they were losing
in the football camp. We were losing the kids by vomit.
These kids, these kids were running routes, curling and just
(04:02):
falling out. We had about twenty kids stopped. Now you
gotta imagine when the kids stopped because you got bubble guts.
I think I got it. I don't feel well, I
don't feel so good. I made an executive decision no
more Sunday Kids. And I love the financial commitment. I
(04:27):
love the product. Kids out here hurting, but we got
to get this Sunday out of here just for everybody.
They weren't padded, It's just some shorts, two of shorts, right,
It's just it's not full contact. That I don't believe
having full contact. The way you introduced kids on plane
(04:48):
is you don't. You let them gradually acclimate to getting hit,
But you don't. You don't teach a little kid how
to catch a football when he knows that the next
lout kickly is playing middle linebacker on the field. It's
really hard to keep up focus on the ball when
you're about to get your ribs broken. Right, And Bro,
(05:11):
we were losing kids. I'm talking about so that literally
the next day, two day, two day came, three day.
Cam we literally the next day, I said, Bro, we
took all they d because it was not it was
not providing the hydration. Dog Day was dying. We was
losing kids left and around. I mean we had we
lost twenty, like twenty kids just did not show up
the next day like Sunny d took out You know
(05:33):
what they talked about all the turf monster real it
was awful. Over The sad part is you know, I
gott drink the product. I don't drinking that product. I
start and you know started, you toube and I don't start.
You can get this. That's the lily stomach. It was hurt.
(05:57):
Sunny D athletics and running around not not the best combo.
Listen sunny D not ever ever, ever, ever ever show
athletic sport and drinking after quenchy your thirsty was a
sunny D would be your last sport. So that that's
the sunny D story. But man tell her his day. Bro,
(06:19):
it was my son. He was like, yeah, dadda. When
I saw Kevin, I was like, yeah, I gotta stop
drinking the sunny because it was free. So they gave
us case case like we were giving it was like
two D fifty kids. Each kid got two Sunnyds to
take on. We had like four hundred sunny D's, but
we dumped them. We had to dump the product because
(06:42):
it was killing the kids. It was killing That'd be
like I hate to say, that'd be like giving kids
Mexican food to go play sports, like Bro can you
imagine you drop this, bro? Can you imagine running a
post route after eating a baby? Though I don't really
want to? Probably you made that It's gonna be the last.
(07:05):
Don't let that quarterback lead you into a messy situation.
Oh man, we might have cut through it with our
next guest man. Yes, sir, who do we have? Frank Kamensky,
first round pick from Charlotte Hornet's currently playing with the
Phoenix Suns, graduate of Wisconsin University, back to back final fours.
(07:27):
He won the Nate Smith Award, the Wooden Award. Frank Kamenski,
You're gonna take part and get iced up. It is
our own version of our Icebreaker. There random questions that
we've selected. Smitty may or may not have a follow up.
(07:48):
He may have a follow up. Have no idea that
you have not to receive these questions prior not ann
clue prior to this podcast. Have you no okay? I
heard they were good? Oh, I heard they were all right?
First one, your first concert? Um it was a Drake concert,
(08:09):
oh telling of his age. So you have an opportunity
to fight a bear or seventy five ducks. I think
I'd rather go with fighting the bear, fighting fighting seventy
of anything is just difficult. Okay. Plus I just got
this image of seven ft tall find commins keep trying
(08:32):
to fight ducks. How do you take your coffee black
with a little bit of sugar? Favorite breakfast food, favorite
breakfast food, pancakes? All right? And then Marvel the DC
Marvel without question, although I think DC has DC has
some good stuff, but Marvel's just topped the bottom is
(08:52):
a way better. M Okay, no no argument on that one.
Last few movies with trash, just it was absolute trash.
So Kaminski, what nationality is Kaminski? It's Polish. Kaminski is Polish.
But I've got everything. I'm like Irish, German, Polish, Serbian, Russian,
(09:15):
I don't know we we come when we live in Chicago.
All families are kind of like that. A lot of
European stuff down down with the squirrel Franks. So where
did your family? How does your family get to Chicago? Then? So,
my dad's all four of his grandparents came from somewhere
(09:38):
in Europe. Um his dad's parents came from Poland, and
his mom's parents, his mom's dad came from Serbia and
his mom's mom, I believe, I'm not quite positive where
she came from. And then my mom's side of the
(09:58):
family is all Ireland pretty much. Why have you been
considering playing for the Serbian national team? You know, obviously
the opportunity is it presented itself. I went and did
the Basketball Without Borders trip for the NBA, which is, UM,
you know, you go overseas and UM, you know, basically
run a camp for the top European players. UM. You
(10:20):
know a lot of the guys who are in the
NBA have gone through that pipeline. UM. And it was
in Serbia. And obviously I've been I played in a
Serbian basketball league growing up. A lot of people know
I have Serbian roots. So UM kind of felt the
pressure while I was over there, UM, you know, considering
I haven't played for Team USA or anything like that,
UM to potentially play for Serbia. So you said you
(10:44):
pay for a Serbian team when you were when you
were younger. UM. So there's a league in Chicago. It's
called the Serbian National Federation. UM. It's in Chicago and
Northwest Indiana primarily, but the tournaments are pretty much nationwide. UM.
They're held in different places. Um, you know, every single
year they pick a different place. It's it's been in
(11:05):
so many different places. It's even been in Canada a
couple of times. Um, it's just one big weekend. Um.
Everybody plays for their uh pretty much their church. Um.
So my dad, you know, he's been playing it, played
in it for a really long time. It was a
Serbian church league. Yeah, essentially, um, you know, and there's
(11:28):
been a lot of good players that have played in it,
a lot of guys that have played Division one basketball. So, um,
it was really good competition growing up. It's always fun.
It's like a big weekend of like basically celebrating and
playing basketball. So it is. It is essentially a giant
church league because, um, the churches do a lot of
sponsoring for this stuff. But I'll tell you right now,
(11:49):
it's mainly about eating, drinking and then playing basketball. I
was just doing the eating and playing basketball at that point.
I wasn't doing the the drinking so much. I played
in it for when I was in fourth grade all
the way through my senior year in high school. So okay,
fourth grade through senior of high school. None of just
because you were extremely tall. None of those are legally
(12:12):
drinking ages for this church weekend that you participated in.
I'm sure if it was back in Serbia would have
been a lot cooler than it would have been. Let's
cut two. And what was it like going up in Chicago?
And what part of Chicago? So we're from the South Side.
We're White Sox fans, like right where the whites, the
(12:34):
Chicago White Sox play. The stadium is where my family
grew up, a couple of blocks away. Um, when my
parents started having kids and moved out into the suburbs,
which is what a lot of Chicago people do. So
I grew up in the suburbs. Um, Chicago is awesome,
It's amazing. You know that. That's where I spend my summers. Um,
(12:54):
I spent it in downtown Chicago. Um. You know, it's
just a really fast paced city and it's what I'm
used to. It definitely toughens you up though, being a
Midwest kid, you know, having those seasonal changes. You know,
Chicago is cold. You know, I'm out in Phoenix right now,
and I feel like I'm spoiled because it's perfect weather.
Minus it gets a little bit too hot here, but
it's perfect weather. Y're around, so you know, Chicago will
(13:17):
always have such a special place in my heart. What
do you mean by a tough and jo up, It's
kind of hard to describe just the way Chicago people are,
you know, just like what you deal with, what you
deal with with the weather, how cold it is, you know,
just people's personalities, like they're they're tough people. I'm a
West Coast guy, so it grew up in Los Angeles,
so you're always in a hurry, you know, and and
(13:39):
living here in Charlotte, and then you know, traveling to
the East coast New York. You know, I'm always interested
to hear how you know, different people, what do they
mean by, you know, tough as far as in Chicago,
because you know, you know, if you go to New York,
you know there's some people in New York that can
be pretty rude. But living here in the South, when
(14:02):
you open a door for a lady or or a
woman in New York, they think you're trying to rob
the right. So that's what I'm trying to I'm trying
to picture how how when you say it's tough, but
it's what's tough Chicago style, the way everyone kind of
fights for everything. You know what I mean, Um, everything
is in Chicago. Everything is a competition. Everything no questions
(14:24):
asked about it. Whether it's conversations, sports, you know, whatever,
you whatever you have, everything is essentially like it's like
a race to the finish line. You know. That's great
when you're when you when you grow up playing basketball
and playing sports, you know, having that competition you know
pretty much everywhere you turn. You know, you can go
play in a tournament, in a league and anything anywhere,
(14:45):
and it's really good competition. You know. And then on
the outside, like personality wise, you know, it kind of
really prepares you to go out into the world and
you know, you kind of for lack of a better word,
you don't take ship from anybody just talking about you
mean from Chicago. You can tell the pride and you know,
you're a basketball player and there's a ton of successful
basketball players, Dwyane Wade, Mark Aguar, you know, Derek Rose.
(15:09):
There's there's a lot of these guys. And Steve talked about,
you know, making you tough how and Frank comm I'm
playing towards that, like you got a guy like you?
How does Chicago even translating that? When you talk about
how Chicago toughens it up. How did that help you
tough enough when it came to playing basketball and playing
this a au random robbin weekend drinking serbian fest. Um,
(15:36):
I always I'll go back a little bit further. I
always wanted to play basketball. You know, my dad played
basketball overseas for a really long time. Um. You know,
so basketball was kind of in my blood. Um, It's
what I grew up doing, you know, watching my dad play. Uh,
you know, it was the first sport I ever started playing.
You know, it was the first sport I fell in
love with. Um. But when you're in Chicago and you
(15:58):
hear all these names, like you know, I can just
remember I watched Derrick Rose played pretty much all the
way through high school, in college and then get drafted
by the Bulls. Um, you know, he was like an
idol of mine. You know. You see all these great
names that come out of Chicago and have played the sports.
You know, I grew up. I was born in so
I got to in my aunt work for the Bulls.
(16:20):
So I got to see a lot of like Michael
Jordan's was like my first memories were you geeking out
over the last dance. Then my uncle is in the documentary,
so he's the My uncle was a guy that told
Jerry Krause the trade for Dennis Robman. Oh so yeah,
my my uncle is kind of responsible for some of
(16:40):
that stuff. That's what I'm talking about. Uncle. You don't
get that kind of behind the scenes access. Now I
love it. You said that your dad played overseas. What
did your mom do? My mom played volleyball and now
she's a teacher. She played volleyball at Northwestern. I think
they when the big champ can tip twice while she
(17:01):
was there, So she had a really successful career there too.
So athletics is basically my family. So how how are
the family gatherings is corn hoole? Starting with the family
fist fight. Everyone in my family is, like I said,
extremely competitive. It's just like a Chicago thing. Like my
dad still thinks he can My dad sixty five now
he thinks he can still beat me in one on one.
(17:22):
And I think even if he was in a well,
even if he was in a wheelchair, he'd be saying
the same exact thing. Won't smoke. So you guys playing
each other as as you tried that out yet I
won't do it. The last time I played him was
in high school and I beat him badly and I
told him I'm done. I'm done playing him. I don't
want to play him anymore. I let him have it.
(17:42):
He can have it. That didn't go well, he didn't. No,
I'm just like, it's a competitive thing. It's it's just
a competitive thing. Like my dad will always go around
telling everyone he can still beat me in basketball, and
I'll always be resentful. I'll always resent him for doing that,
you know what I mean. I don't know. I don't know.
I gotta I got an awesome relationship with my dad. So, yeah,
(18:05):
you're trying to keep it positive. Yes, I'm trying to
keep it positive. I don't want to call him delusional
or anything. But maybe I might be calling him delusional.
I don't know. You have an awesome podcast, Pros and Joe's,
and it was something on there that you said that
I want to ask you about because it really gave
(18:26):
transparency of who you are. And you talked about how
why you try not to interact with people on social
media a lot. But you said something that was a
little bit of nugget for me, which is you talked
about how some of these these grown men go on
social media and talk about how a professional athlete is
(18:48):
trash or and you'll see that this guy is he's
twenty six years old or whatever however old he is,
and he has three kids and he's talking about Frank
or whoever it is, you know, any any basketball player,
and he's and your and you said, you know, hey,
how about you going to be a dad? And then
you said something, your folks are um divorced, but they
(19:10):
did the best they could and they instilled things into
you that were really good. You know, my parents got
divorced when I was really young. Um, I think I
was in like third grade, and I got me my
older sister and my younger sister. And at the time,
you know, it was it was like so confusing because
I was so young and like at that age, like
(19:32):
especially in school, like people's parents aren't getting divorced where
I'm from, Like the schools we went to, you know,
I grew up going to private schools, and you know,
it felt like everyone had like kind of this perfect
family life, you know, with their parents and everything. When
I was really young, this is how I felt. And
you know, my home was kind of we were like
(19:52):
the family that everyone was kind of talking about, like
parents getting divorced, like tough situation, like how's it handling
on the kids and everything, and um, you know, it
kind of be it becomes part of your identity growing up,
you know, living in a home where you know both
of your parents. You know, I'm living in my mom's house,
you know, not seeing my dad as often as I
(20:14):
wanted to, you know, it's just really difficult. Um. But
sports kind of became the thing that where, no matter
what was happening, you know, with our family and everything,
everything kind of felt normal. Like both of our parents
were there cheering it's on. There was no fighting and
(20:35):
arguing and sporting events. You know, my mom was coaching
me in volleyball, my dad was coaching me in basketball. Um,
and that's where everything just like felt comfortable and made
sense and you didn't have to deal with all the
external problems and fights and arguing and everything that goes
into that. So you know, that's why I've kind of
(20:55):
thrust myself so far into into basketball, or at least
I did when I was younger, because it was really
the place where I felt like the most normal because
when you grow up in a house like that where
your parents can't stand each other, um, makes things a
lot easier for you. Takes a lot of the stress away.
(21:16):
So you know, obviously things are way better now we're
all grown up. They'll have our own lives, Me and
my sisters, um, and my parents got their own thing.
But um, you know, it's definitely definitely something that's been,
you know, an identity of our family for a very
long time. Well, I appreciate you sharing that, and I
(21:39):
also think one of the cool things as you said
something too, it sounds like you use your dad was
your coach, so it was another way to steal some
time with your dad always. Yeah, absolutely, So how much
did your dad contribute to your basketball? I Q? I
(22:00):
mean pretty much everything. Um, you know, he was always
you know, my dad was always my coach. But he
wasn't always like the head coach, you know what I mean.
He wasn't like the He always let other people coach
me because you know, he always felt that it was
best that I deal with other people as opposed to
(22:20):
just dealing with him all the time. And you know,
you know now that I think about it, like I
see a lot of people like their parents are always
like defending them, and like parents are always going to
like coaches and saying like why aren't you playing my
kid more or anything. But that wasn't that wasn't the
way my dad did. And my dad was like, you
gotta figure it out, like if you want to if
you want to play, you gotta play better. If you
(22:41):
want to do this, you gotta do this better. So,
you know, my dad pretty much taught me everything you
know in the sport and pretty much how to deal
with all the problems that come with it, because you know,
he had played basketball for so long, played overseas, played
for in so many different situations, you know, whether good
or bad, so he knew what it was like. And
(23:02):
you know, I'm really lucky I had that growing up
because you know, it wasn't always all rainbows and sunshine
from me. You know, I had a lot of growing problems.
I had a lot of maturity problems when I was
a kid. Obviously, Like I said, you know, when you
grew up in a house like that, you kind of
sometimes deal with maturity problems. Um, So it was just
(23:22):
good to have him use sports as a way to
teach me pretty much everything about life. I mean, we
all we often look about sports being an outlet, right,
and it didn't matter outside of Chicago. You grew up
on South side suburban, so it did it didn't matter.
Sports was literally an outlet for you. Why was that
(23:43):
so important? Like I said, sports was my escape from everything. Um,
you know, no matter what was going on, you know,
family wise, social wise, you know, anything, any problem I
ever had. You know, when I played basketball, they all
just disappeared. And you know, I got to just play
the game that I loved. Got to do something that
(24:03):
I love, you know, whether it's for an hour or
two hours, you know, going for an entire week somewhere
to play in a week long AU tournament, you know,
whatever it is, you know, you just get to escape
from that. And now, like now that it's become like
my career and what I do, basketball still that same
(24:23):
outlet for me today that it was when I was fourteen,
So it's just become part of who I am, and
you know how I deal with a lot of problems.
And you know, I'm very I'm very very thankful that
it's become that for me. Thanks thought, we gotta take
a break reply, I'm going through this currently with my
(24:52):
one of my boys right now, who is in the
last year and a half year, has um basically grew
about six inches in the Smith household. He's becoming the
tallest of us. All I know all about that. How
tall were you your freshman year in high school? I
was six to my freshman year, okay, six six. By
(25:16):
my sophomore year, I left high school at six ten,
and then I grew. I grew another two inches my
freshman year in college. What position were you playing when
you were six to when you were a freshman? I
was a guard when I first got into high school,
I left playing like yeah, and then I went to
(25:36):
playing I went from like playing like a two to
my sophomore year, I was the four, and then the
last two years in high school, I was the center,
and then that's the position I played all the way
through college. And then you know, when I got back
to the NBA. Now I'm back to playing the four,
which is always been the most comfortable position. But you know,
(25:58):
basketball has kind of changed in this and that positions
aren't really what they used to be. So you play
basketball at Wisconsin, and in the first first two years
you averaged you have his three points at one point
six rebounds. Yep. Why what was going on there? Uh? Well,
(26:21):
when I got to college, I still had a lot
of physical maturing to do. Um, I wasn't I wasn't
very strong. Um, I was skinny. I was still kind
of growing into my body. Oh but um there was
an I thought I was gonna red shirt, like right
when I got there. That's what, honestly, I thought was
gonna happen. But the coaches came to me and pretty
(26:41):
much told me like, look, you have an opportunity to play. Um,
it's not gonna be much, but pretty much every game,
you're gonna get a couple of minutes of game here
and there, and that could be valuable experience for when
it's your time to take over. And you know it was.
I was just actually pretty much a backup for somebody
(27:02):
who needed a break right before media time. Ons That's
the best way I can describe it. Um, But I
had so much maturing that I needed to do, both
physically and mentally to be able to, um like take
the leap two becoming what I became in college. Like
I always knew I had something inside of me, Like
(27:27):
like I knew I was going to be a good
player in college. I didn't know which level I would
take it to. But um, you know, that experience of
having to fight for more and more and more as
my career went on kind of made me hungry for
when it was my opportunity. Junior year, you bust out nowhere,
out of nowhere, your point game against North Dakota. Tell
(27:49):
me about that, like you're you're almost like you're you're
coming out party, like you you're breaking out. Tell us
about that game, and then just how did it feel
leading into it, and we'll get into your do you
you're seeing you you were? I think people don't remember
how awesome and amazing of a college basketball player you were.
But we talk about that four or three point game,
you know, the first I think we had like three
(28:10):
games before my forty three point game, and I think
I scored like I want to say, like sixteen points
in like three games, and I just wasn't I just
didn't like know my spots yet, Like I wasn't like
truly comfortable like we had our years. Like in college
you can go overseas and play like a like an
exhibition tour, and I played really really well in those games,
(28:31):
and it was like the leading scorer on our team.
When the first three games of the season came along,
you know, I kind of struggled to get comfortable. Um,
and then I just remember before that North Dakota game,
I was like, this is like we're gonna beat this team.
Just go out there and just play loose and play
free and see what happens pretty much, and then I
(28:53):
just started making. I just started like making everything. So
I don't I don't know. It was just that was
like kind of the game where it all click in
my mind that you know you are good and you
know when you play like you know how to play,
this is what the result can believe. That kind of
gave me the confidence to like keep going forward and
wanting more. What what kind of internal dialogue did you
(29:16):
have that was holding you back? It wasn't that I
wasn't playing well. I see. That's see with basketball, like
sometimes you get obsessed with like points and rebounds and um,
you know, assists and steals and blocks and all these things.
But that's not always an indicator of if you're playing
well or not. Like in our first three games, like
(29:37):
our team played significantly better when I was on the
floor versus when I was off the floor. So like
I was, I was still playing well. I just wasn't scoring.
But you know, my whole basketball life, I've been like
kind of a scorer. So um, you know that's one
thing for me that always it shouldn't be, you know,
(29:58):
an indicator of, you know, in my mind of how
well I'm playing versus like not, but it always will be.
It's something I talked about with my dad too. I
was just playing way too tense, Like I wasn't loosing,
playing free because you know, when I just play free
and don't overthink things. Um, that's when I met my best.
In those first couple of games. I was just like
(30:20):
I wanted to play so well because I wanted to
fit two years of being a backup into basically three games,
as opposed to realizing it was gonna be a long
season and I was gonna have my opportunity to the
whole year. How does march madness? How does that impact
kids today? You know, all my best memories are pretty
(30:40):
much n C Double A tournament. Um, you know, it
is the most it's the most fun you can have
playing college basketball. You know it feels like it feels
like that's when it feels like you become like a
professional player, you know what I mean, Like when you're
playing against um like you're playing in your conference schedule
in everything, and you're playing against all these teams, like
(31:01):
it's it's fun and it's really really great competition, and
winning the Big Ten Championship is was, you know, up
there on the top of the list of accomplishments in college.
But just nothing really compares to playing in the n
C Double A tournament, you know, just from you know,
the traveling, you know, the teams you play against, you know,
being in the region, the tournament, the selection show, the games,
(31:25):
you know, having your basically your travel party, your families,
they're just everything kind of it just feels it's just
an atmosphere that everyone wants to be a part of
so badly. And then you know, once you make it
to the final four and you're playing in front of
sixty seventy thousand people in football arenas, that's when it's
(31:45):
that's when it's like it just like hits you that
this is like this is like the peak of a
lot of different things for you in your life. It's
amazing you were the ninth overall pick by the Charlotte Hornets.
Take us through the drafting process for you being a
(32:06):
ninth pick. So pretty much I played in the National
championship game my senior year, so I'm in the last
game of the season. So like some people would, you know,
just the way pre draft workouts and pretty much I
got back to campus and essentially left immediately to go
train in Santa Barbara. Uh. For like I think it
(32:28):
was like six weeks before the draft happened with the
aging agency or is just just I knew who I
was going to sign with once the season was over,
So pretty much right when I got done, I signed
with my agency the next day, and like two days later,
I was pretty much on a plane and out of there. Um.
And when you get out there, you know, you're obviously
(32:48):
your training, you're going through workouts, um. And then you
start workouts for teams pretty quickly after that. So I
worked out I think for six teams because at that
point you know pretty much you like there's no obviously
there's no guarantee, but you know like what your draft
(33:09):
range is. They give you essentially a draft grade, and
mine was mine was lottery so um, I knew I
was going to go somewhere, you know, one to fifteen.
So you essentially start mapping out the teams do you
think you fit in best for and you start working
out for him. Um, and I ended up working out
for six teams. I think if you work out for
(33:31):
the one, yes and no. I didn't go to Charlotte.
But agencies hold their big workout days, like they have
their days where all the teams come in and watch
you work out. There were scouts or executives from all
thirty teams in Santa Barbara when we held like our
pro day for our agency. I knew Charlotte had a
lot of interest, so there was really not a huge
(33:54):
reason to go to Charlotte and work out for them.
So and then obviously they were the team that ended
up drafting me, but they were at that workout in
UM Santa Barbara, and I knew they had a lot
of interest from there. It's stressful at the same time
because like anything can happen, like a team can have
I'm it's the same. I'm sure it's the same with
the NFL. But like a team can have a player
(34:16):
in mind that if someone before them takes that player,
it completely changes the whole draft from then on out
draft Knight was, I mean, it was I was losing
it there for a little while. I just because you
hear about trades and you know teams are trying to
trade up, trade back. Um, you know this team is
(34:38):
saying they're going to take you at this spot, but
then you never know if that's actually gonna happen or not.
There was just so many scenarios playing in my head
in me like the kind of person I am, I
like just cut and dry, straight to the point. I
don't like the guessing game. And that was the biggest
guessing game I was ever playing in my life, and
I felt like I had no control. When I got
drafted and my name was finally called, it was like
(35:00):
just a big like breath, like finally like a breath
of fresh air, you know what I mean, Because I
had been so on edge for like a week, Because
like you're in New York for like five days leading
up to the draft doing all this stuff, you're just
kind of like on edge, or just my personality type,
I was on edge like pretty much the whole time
(35:21):
I was there. Just wanted to hear my name called
and figure out where I was going to be going.
Describe your relationship with basketball today. Basketball is everything for me. Um,
it's I don't want to say it's like who I
am because there's so many different aspects of my life
(35:42):
that make me who I am. But UM, you know,
I don't get the same amount of enjoyment out of
like a lot of things that I do basketball. So
you know, I just you know, I'm twenty seven now
and five years in. Um, I want to play this
game for as long as I can. UM. I've always
told like my friends and my family like basketball, just
(36:08):
like for me. You know how Vince Carter just played
until he was forty and twenty two, twenty two years.
You know that's gonna be me. You know it might
not be in the NBA, but I'm gonna be playing
basketball until I physically can't anymore. Like that's just how
much it means to me. Like it's It's taken away
so many of the problems that I've ever had in
(36:29):
my life and been like a like it has been
an escape for me and it still is, Like I said,
so you know, I want to keep that a part
of my life for as long as I can. As
I was listening to you talk, you said You're gonna
play as long as you possibly can. It sounded like
another comiskey. I know that sixty five years old, I
(36:51):
am my father's son. I'll say I will say that
I will play basketball. Even if I'm hunched over and
walking up and down the court, I'm still gonna get
out there and fire up a couple three. So I
like that for me playing football. I hated football at times,
I literally frank I hated sometimes the competitiveness. I hated
(37:16):
how it made me feel. At times. I hated the
fact that thurs Days I got up pretty piste off.
You hated the competitveness. I hated the competitiveness because of
what it what I had to awaken inside of me.
A lot of the childhood issues or things that I
experienced at a young age that I don't believe young
(37:37):
men should experience. But it was what God decided to
hand in my path, and it built calcul and to
build a little bit of um hardening of my heart.
But in that, you know, the the butterfly, the calipular.
I woke in with something that I'm pretty proud of.
(37:58):
The day is there times where you wake up, you know,
upset at yourself or upset at basketball. Absolutely. I think
if you love something enough, it frustrates you beyond anything that. Um.
I think a lot of people can understand, Like you
(38:18):
even touched on it, like sometimes you've got to be
in such whether it's a good or a bad mental place. Um,
whatever drives you or whatever motivates you. Sometimes everything that
motivates me isn't positive things. A lot of it's negative stuff.
Like you know, way either way I'm viewed like the
politics of the situation I'm in, you know what, what
(38:40):
something that's going on in like my personal life, you know,
all those things like it's not fun waking up and
like going to playing a game when you know that
you've got to be piste off about something to get
yourself into a place where you feel like you can
go out and like you've got something to prove. Like
that's not always the most fun thing in the world.
You know, that aspect of it is very difficult at
(39:04):
time because it's just it's like sometimes like it's a
cloud over like your entire life. I can relate, you know,
I also revel in that because you know, like when
you go in there and you've got problems or you've
got something that's motivating you, and you go out and
you have a great game, Like the feeling of reward afterwards,
like the the freshness you feel, or the relief that
(39:27):
you feel. You know that that's something I live for.
I know you were enjoying it. So it's not good.
But we need to take a little time. We gotta
pay some bills, use a bathroom, and wash your hands,
and we'll be back in a moment. You're one of
(39:49):
the most decorated college basketball players of all time, but
you're still motivated by the small things. I mean, it's
it's interesting to hear from you what continues to mot
devate you and not just being drafted and being in
the NBA. You're continually motivated day over day and not
letting these accolades define you. The accolades are what they are. Um,
(40:11):
you know, I've always said this. You know, they're they're great,
They're amazing. I'm happy I accomplished them, but that's not
what I've kind of set out for. The thing that
motivates me, the driving factor in the back of my
head is I want to win a championship. You know,
the one thing in college that I didn't get to
add to my resume was national champion. I went to
the two final fours in a row, played in the
(40:32):
national championship game and ended up losing both times. You know,
I want to finish with a championship. I don't have
one yet. That's something that motivates me daily. Oh cut tour.
We have this thing we call deep three. How lonely
(40:52):
is playing professional sports sometimes very lonely, you know, especially
when you're on long road trips and you know, you
know me, I don't have a girlfriend. I don't have fiance,
I don't have a girl. UM, I just got one
friend that lives with me. Um. You know, when you're
far away from your family all the time, UM, it's
definitely difficult. UM, it can get very lonely. But you know,
(41:16):
I'm lucky in the sense that, you know, I have
a lot of people that are always coming out, UM,
you know, come to games, hanging out. You know, my
dad's close to the retirement. UM, so that's something I'm
looking forward to. Is you know, soon my dad will
be out here and then hopefully some of my family
will follow wherever I am, so you know, it can
(41:37):
definitely get really lonely. But you know, the lucky part
of the money situation is you can afford to have people,
you know, especially people that are important to you, be
there when you need them. Why is being authentic so
important to you? You know, just being who you are
is you know, being unapologetically being yourself is something that's
always been extremely important to me. I don't I don't
(42:00):
ever want to change and do another person to appease someone,
you know. I feel like, at this point in my life,
I am who I am and if you don't like
me and you go. If you don't get along with me,
if if we don't see eye to eye, that's just
you know, I'm not gonna I'm not going to change
who I am to make everyone happy, because I just
feel like, at this point in life, you can't make
(42:21):
every you can't satisfy everyone, you can't please everyone. Um,
you gotta do what makes you happy and you're comfortable
and you to be able to live the life that
you want to live when you hang up those sides
six teams, What do you want people to say about
Frank Kamiski? Oh, that's deep, That is a deep question.
(42:50):
You know, that's that's that's hard to answer at this point. Um,
you know whole. I hope that one day that you know,
at least the people close to me, the people who
truly know me and understand me, can sit there and
say he got the most out of everything that was
(43:10):
either given to him or he earned. UM. I think
that's important, UM, because you know, obviously everybody's dealt a
different hand in life. You know, I'm fortunate enough that
I was dealt the height and athletic abilities that I have. UM.
You know, that's a god given talent and I'm very
(43:30):
thankful for it, and I feel like I've utilized it
very well up until this point. But I want to
make sure that you know, every stage of success or
every stage of you know, what I've done in life,
that I've handled it correctly. I think that's the most important,
whether it's you know, how I treat people, I've given back,
(43:51):
you know, how I've pushed myself forward in my career,
how hard I've worked. I want to make sure that
you know, when it's all said and done at you
can all look back and say that I did the
right thing at every step. I worked my hardest and
I got the most out of the situation that I've
been dealt. And and I think I hope other people
(44:13):
perceive me as just, you know, a good guy who
loves playing basketball. I think if everyone saw me that way, No,
I don't need really any other like gratification, you know.
I hope I have that championship that I was talking
about and I can add that to my resume. But um,
as long as people know that I'm a like a
(44:35):
good person who just loves playing the game, that that's
good enough for me. Was there a point in your life?
You know? Can I finish the question? Continue? And from
the top, was there pointing your life you were playing
(44:56):
to escape? And what were you escaping from? Sports helps
you escape everything. You can unplug all together. I don't
care if life is good or bad. You get to
be whatever you are dreaming about at that moment. You
(45:18):
get to act it out in real life. That's why
sports is so captivating. That's why sports is such an
entertainment business. That so many people, so many sponsors, so
many fans, dumped so many dollars into it because I
was always trying to escape, the fact of the matter
is we were poor, we were on section eight on
(45:38):
food stamps. Mom was in some bad relationships and it
reflected us and it impacted us every freaking day of
the week. So yeah, I thrived in sports. Sports was
the only place that I can let my hair down
and and and press forward and kicking, hit and run
and jump in. I wasn't being looked at the wrong way,
(46:03):
and so I I really love sports. I think sports
is one of those places that you can be yourself
for that moment. You can have dialogue and conversations in
your head and no one gets to judge. Here. You
can even respond in a way at times that in
real life is not appropriate, but as sports, it's called passion.
(46:24):
Cut to It with Steve Smith Senior, That Is Me
is a production of Cut to It LLC, Balto Creative Media,
The Black Effect and I Heart Radio. For more podcast
from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio Apple
Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(46:45):
From Cut to It Executive producer Steve Smith, singor co
host Gerard little John, talent in booking manager Joe Fusci,
social media manager Peyton Smith. From Balto Creative Media, Cut
to It is deduced by Brian Faltaschevitch and Meredith Carter,
with production assistance by Alex Lebrek, production manager Sarah Pollock.
(47:08):
Theme music by Alex Johnson, lyrics and vocals by Anthony Hamilton.
You ain't heard about it, then, we're about to let you.
Now it's all
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