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Hornets' center options receive praise from their head coach at Charlotte Hornets media day

Originally posted on Charlotte Hornets on SI
By Matt Alquiza | Last updated Sep 30, 2025 3:58 PM ET

After trading Mark Williams to the Phoenix Suns, the Charlotte Hornets have essentially punted on the center position for 2025-26.

That's not to say they don't have high hopes for the talent they possess at the position. Charles Lee has spoken highly of all three projected options, Miles Plumlee, Moussa Diabate, and Ryan Kalkbrenner, the franchise has just decided to minimize their spending at center in lieu of splurging on upgrades elsewhere.

According to Spotrac, the only teams spending less capital on the center position are the Golden State Warriors (although their impending agreement with Al Horford will change that), and the Washington Wizards (who don't employ a single player that Spotrac deems as a center).

If you consider Alex Sarr a center (which he is) and include Horford's deal that will become official this week, Charlotte sinks to the bottom of spending at the position with a meager $6.86 million in contracts being paid to centers this season.

Somehow, Lee will need to find 48 minutes of production out of the minimally compensated trio. During Tuesday's media day, he gave some clues as to how each of the three will be deployed.

Charles Lee dishes on his big men

'We have a great group of bigs, I would say. Which is really exciting to me because we can play a lot of different ways with these three guys,' said Lee when asked about the challenges of scheming a defense around three players with varying skill sets.

When expounding on his answer, Lee shed some light about the specific strengths each of the three centers will bring to the court.

Mason Plumlee

'When (Mason) is here, he's going to bring an element of high basketball IQ. I think he's going to help us protect the paint at a high level, which is what we're all about first and foremost. And then, with his experience, he has such a good feel for player tendencies and understanding how high to be in the pick-and-roll, how low to be in the pick-and-roll.'

'He helps with the physicality of the game too in terms of being able to play straight post-up guys on top of being able to switch a little bit, I think he's a lot more mobile than people realize. I'm excited to use him in a lot of different ways.'

Moussa Diabate

'His best coverage is usually when he's switching. We've been able to move him around the floor, I think it will be important that once we get into a lot of those switching coverages with him away from the basket, who is going to help us still protect the paint? That is one thing we're going to have to dive into a little bit more knowing that he'll play a lot more this year.

Ryan Kalkbrenner

'We got to see his competitiveness at Creighton and also at Summer League. The dude has such great instincts, reminds me a lot of Brook Lopez in terms of his ability to just survey the floor and understand where to be and how to get there in enough time, and then a fearlessness to just go block everything at the rim and be a deterrent.'

The biggest question that Charles Lee has to answer in training camp is how these three players are going to be deployed. While it's easy to look at this trio as a weakness, Lee could quickly flip that perceived frailty into a meaningful strength with creative, matchup-based minutes allocations that match-up well with the personnel they're facing.

Diabate, Plumlee, and Kalkbrenner all bring different strengths to the floor - it's up to Lee to maximize them.