Hornets’ Impressive Rookie Could’ve Been Perfect Celtics Player
The Boston Celtics lost three impact centers in the offseason, which makes their passing up of Ryan Kalkbrenner in the 2025 NBA draft a tad more painful. Kalkbrenner has been playing well in training camp and preseason for the Charlotte Hornets, who drafted the former Creighton center at No. 34 overall, six picks after the Celtics’ selection.
Did the Celtics make a mistake in not drafting Kalkbrenner? He could have been a viable replacement for Luke Kornet, even if guys like Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis are much harder to replace.
Here’s the thing: the Celtics likely viewed Kalkbrenner as a favorable prospect on their draft board, but they may have simply viewed Hugo González as a better prospect. Passing up on a player in the draft doesn’t mean you don’t like that player — sometimes it just means you like someone else more.
Kalkbrenner landed on a team coached by Charles Lee, who was an assistant with Boston during the Celtics’ title season. Lee shares a lot of the same principles as Mazzulla and the Celtics’ leadership. It’s highly likely that if Lee liked Kalkbrenner enough to sign off on drafting him, people inside Boston’s draft war room felt similarly about Kalkbrenner.
Given Boston’s iffy center situation entering 2025-26, shortsighted critics will be quick to say that Brad Stevens made a mistake in not drafting Kalkbrenner, who is looking like he might be in consideration to start for Charlotte.
But to criticize Brad’s decision here is to undersell the value of a guy like González, who has a higher ceiling than Kalkbrenner, even if Kalkbrenner’s floor is higher than Hugo’s.
These are two winning basketball players, no doubt. Both could end up having successful careers in the NBA, but González has the potential to be more impactful than Kalkbrenner in the long run.
Kalkbrenner might have been a perfect fit in Boston, but González might be a lot better. Both things can be true.