{"id":758645,"date":"2026-06-11T22:42:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/758645\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T22:42:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:42:20","slug":"charlotte-hornets-2025-26-player-grades-ryan-kalkbrenner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/758645\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlotte Hornets 2025-26 player grades: Ryan Kalkbrenner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After five seasons with Creighton, <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nba\/players\/10476\/\" data-i13n=\"sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link\" data-ylk=\"slk:Ryan Kalkbrenner;sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link;itc:0\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Ryan Kalkbrenner&quot;,&quot;ySubModuleName&quot;:&quot;anchor_text&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ryan Kalkbrenner<\/a> landed with the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/charlotte-hornets\/5312\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Charlotte Hornets;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Charlotte Hornets&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Charlotte Hornets<\/a> in the second round of the 2025 NBA Draft. Due to Charlotte&#8217;s lack of depth at center, the rookie was named a starter on opening night and held that spot until the emergence of <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nba\/players\/6733\/\" data-i13n=\"sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link\" data-ylk=\"slk:Moussa Diabate;sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link;itc:0\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Moussa Diabate&quot;,&quot;ySubModuleName&quot;:&quot;anchor_text&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Moussa Diabate<\/a> eventually moved him to the bench. That said, the four-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year played well in both roles, showcasing his rebounding and shot-blocking ability.<\/p>\n<p>In 69 games, Kalkbrenner made 31 starts, averaging 7.6 points, 5.5 rebounds, 0.8 assists, 1.5 blocks and 0.5 steals in 21.4 minutes per game. Kalkbrenner&#8217;s field goal efficiency was among the league leaders, finishing top-five with a 75.3% success rate. If Kalkbrenner continues to do these things well, he&#8217;ll have a solid NBA career as a backup center. However, if he hopes to take the next step, he&#8217;ll need to work on his post-scoring and possibly add a jumper to stretch the floor as well.<\/p>\n<p>Overall grade: A<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Rookie Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/therookiewire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/rookie\/2026\/06\/11\/charlotte-hornets-2025-26-player-grades-ryan-kalkbrenner\/90513260007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Charlotte Hornets 2025-26 player grades: Ryan Kalkbrenner;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Charlotte Hornets 2025-26 player grades&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Charlotte Hornets 2025-26 player grades: Ryan Kalkbrenner<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After five seasons with Creighton, Ryan Kalkbrenner landed with the Charlotte Hornets in the second round of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3777],"tags":[30,7,684,473,3878,685,6357,6,972],"class_list":["post-758645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-charlotte-hornets","tag-2025-nba-draft","tag-basketball","tag-charlotte","tag-charlotte-hornets","tag-charlottehornets","tag-hornets","tag-moussa-diabate","tag-nba","tag-ryan-kalkbrenner"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116733892578814255","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}