The people have spoken once more. After selecting VJ Edgecombe with the 4th overall pick in the first community vote, Charlotte Hornets fans have voted to use the 33rd and 34th picks to select Ryan Kalkbrenner and Adou Thiero.
Kalkbrenner is a very large center out of Creighton that won Big East Defensive Player of the Year all four years that he was a starter. He has soft touch around the basket, is a lob target, and blocks a ton of shots. He’s also shown the early stages of a potential 3-point shot. He’s not a great rebounder, especially given his size, and he’s already 23 years old, so he falls to the second round.
Adou Thiero followed John Calipari from Kentucky to Arkansas for his junior season and immediately emerged as the team’s best player. He’s a tremendous athlete that makes all sorts of plays on defense, and he broke out as a productive offensive player for the first time as a junior. He’s a non shooter, but he has a punishing slashing game and a decent feel on the offensive end of the floor.
Both picks theoretically help the Hornets defensively, and there’s enough about each player’s game to feel like there might be more there than they’ve shown so far.
24% of respondents casted a vote for Kalkbrenner and 22% casted a vote for Thiero. That pair had a pretty commanding lead over the rest of the field. The next top vote getters:
- Hansen Yang (11%)
- Bogoljub Marković (8%)
- Johni Broome (8%)
- Sion James (6%)
- Tyrese Proctor (5%)
- Koby Brea (5%)
If you want to see how we got here, you can read the first half of the draft here and the second half here.
