Ryan Kalkbrenner didn’t need a huge scoring night to leave a mark on Charlotte’s season opener. In 13:58 off the bench Wednesday, the rookie big man helped the Hornets turn their minutes into a runaway stretch, with Charlotte outscoring Brooklyn by 22 while he was on the floor in a 110-103 win at Barclays Center.
His box score was tidy and efficient: 4 points on 2-of-3 shooting, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks. Charlotte finished with only four blocks as a team, which makes Kalkbrenner’s share stand out even more. He also grabbed three rebounds on the offensive end, giving the Hornets extra chances in a game where possessions mattered.
The Hornets won the hustle battle in ways that showed up all over the floor. They took 93 shots to Brooklyn’s 80, outrebounded the Nets on the offensive glass 15-?
Wait no: Charlotte had 15 offensive rebounds and 20 second-chance points, and they outscored Brooklyn 48-44 in the paint. Brooklyn shot 45% from the field, while Charlotte shot 44.1%, but the Hornets kept forcing the issue and cashing in on the extra possessions.
Kalkbrenner said the late-game bounces came because Charlotte stayed active and kept putting itself in the right spots.
"I think going through the preseason we had a lot of stuff that we wanted to clean up," Kalkbrenner said. "So the biggest thing for us was just doing what we do and focusing on our game and trying to do the things that we wanted to do.
And we brought great energy tonight. It wasn't always perfect, but we were really competitive with everything we did, so that's all I can ask for, even if not everything's going perfect."
The plus-minus numbers across Charlotte’s rotation told the same story. Grayson Allen finished plus-20, Royce O'Neale was plus-15, and Kalkbrenner was plus-22.
On the other side of the ledger, Moussa Diabaté started at center and played 33:38 but finished minus-16. Naz Reid started next to him at forward, while Hannes Steinbach, the 14th overall pick in June, did not play.
There was also a little edge to Kalkbrenner’s night. He and Brooklyn’s Noah Clowney were each assessed a technical foul with 8:42 left in the second quarter. Kalkbrenner also picked up four personal fouls and committed one turnover.
The Hornets’ frontcourt setup is already different from where it was a year ago. Kalkbrenner, selected 34th in the 2025 draft after five seasons at Creighton, arrived with a decorated defensive résumé: four Big East Defensive Player of the Year awards and the 2025 Naismith Defensive Player of the Year honor. As a rookie, he averaged 7.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in 69 games, with 31 starts, while shooting 75.3% from the field.
Charlotte opened the 2025-26 season against Brooklyn at Spectrum Center last year with Kalkbrenner starting at center. Diabaté opened that season behind him and finished it as the starter. Kalkbrenner also missed 10 games with an elbow injury from Dec. 22 through Jan. 8, then spent the summer in Las Vegas averaging 5.3 points, 4.7 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 3.7 blocks.
Hornets coach Charles Lee said Charlotte made plenty of winning plays late, but he wasn’t handing out a glowing review of the execution.
"Average," Lee said. "But that's fine because it's the first game of the season. It gives us some great film to go and watch, but I think that there's some situational things that we can continue to improve upon, and I know that we will as we get better conditioned, as we get a better feel for one another and the lineups that we have at the end of the game."
For Charlotte, the opener made one thing clear: Kalkbrenner can tilt a game even without starting it. He gave the Hornets rim protection, extra rebounds and a burst of energy that helped swing the flow while Diabaté handled the starting role. Kalkbrenner is in the second season of a four-year, $9,968,963 contract signed with the second-round exception, and $4,707,364 of it is guaranteed.
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For a Hornets team still sorting out its identity, that kind of presence matters just as much as scoring. Schrder has already earned the staffs trust, and the early signs suggest he can help organize possessions, settle the group and bring a needed voice in tense stretches. The bigger question now is how quickly that influence shows up when the games get tighter and the margins shrink even further. [Read more 🡒]