Moussa Diabaté has the drive and defensive commitment to earn lofty comparisons.
Moussa Diabaté is built for this life.
He has a motor that could rack up 500 miles at Daytona, add 500 more in Indy and keep on ticking through 24 Hours of Le Mans. At 6-foot-10 and 210 sinewy pounds, the Charlotte Hornets’ 24-year-old center is all angles and elbows.
He has been an essential contributor to the Hornets’ nine-game winning streak on the line Monday night when Detroit, sitting atop the Eastern Conference, plays at Spectrum Center (7 p.m. ET, League Pass). And the way he has been playing has drawn comparisons to two of the NBA’s all-time high priests of trench warfare: Dennis Rodman and Ben Wallace.
Not from hyperbolic media folks, mind you, but from Hornets coach Charles Lee.
“The parallels I see are in the tenacity,” Lee told NBA.com Friday. “The hunger to try to impact the game on every possession. He just wears people out with his energy, with his effort, with his physicality, with his competitiveness.
“He helps our team get a stop or get another possession, and you sometimes can see the other team kind of hang their heads. Their body language changes. One teammate looks at the other teammate for letting Moussa get the rebound. It creates dissension. His impact only becomes a ‘wow’ thing for us, it can be a spirit crusher for the other team.”
Rodman and Wallace, of course, parlayed their energy and grit all the way to Springfield, Massachusetts. They rank as two of the lowest-scoring NBA enshrinees in Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame history. But as defenders, rebounders, hustle players and, respectively, an irritant and an intimidator, few who played reached their levels.
Said Diabaté: “It’s always a blessing to have your coach comparing you to the greats. I’ve got to keep doing what I’ve got to do and live with, and see, the results.”
The results have been spectacular lately. In Charlotte’s latest victory, 126-119 at Atlanta on Saturday, Diabaté had 11 points and 15 rebounds, his 14th double-double this season. Four have come during the current winning streak. He has grabbed five or more offensive rebounds 18 times.
Diabaté, averaging 8.4 points and 8.7 rebounds, ranks second among the Hornets in plus/minus and 39th in the league (+178), including his +124 during the streak. He is 17th in the NBA in on/off point differential (+13).
That kind of effort is helping fuel the team’s torrid play (14-6 in 2026). Charlotte is 15-1 when Diabaté, Ball, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges and Kon Knueppel all start. That unit has the top point differential — +33.8 — among five-man lineups in the league, per Cleaning The Glass (min. 150 possessions).
Hornets’ improvement is clear
David Fizdale and Cuttino Mobley break down the Hornets’ win streak.
At 25-28 – SoFi Play-In Tournament-worthy – the Hornets already have won more than they did last season (19-63).
“Compared to last year, we didn’t have this identity,” Diabaté told NBA.com. “We went into the summer saying we want to play fast, we want to do other things. We kept building up and through this year, everybody can see we’re getting better. That’s what it’s come down to – playing the way we preached. Playing fast, playing physical, talking more. And using each other’s best abilities.”
Led by Knueppel, a Kia Rookie of the Year candidate chasing Dallas Mavericks star Cooper Flagg, Charlotte’s youth infusion (with fellow rookies Ryan Kalkbrenner, Sion James and Liam McNeeley) has solidified rotation holes. Holdovers Ball, Bridges and Miller all are averaging between 18 and 20 points per game while combining for about 48 shots.
Only two teams have made more than the Hornets’ 810 3-pointers, and only five have shot them better than Charlotte’s 37.2% mark. Charlotte also ranks fifth in offensive rebound percentage and second defensively, two areas where Diabaté’s impact is felt most.
“My ability to grab an offensive rebound, I can get us extra possessions,” said Diabaté, who averages 3.7 per game (Kalkbrenner grabs another 2.4). “Or even just running the floor. Most bigs are not as accustomed to that.”
In a league with plenty of “stretch 5” centers and others throwing long, broad shadows in the paint, Diabaté is neither. But he is 6-foot-10 and the next Red Bull he needs will be his first.
That’s part of the connection with Rodman and Wallace. Rodman was a 6-foot-7 forward and third-round pick out of Southeastern Oklahoma State who pestered his way to seven rebounding titles and eight All-Defensive selections. Wallace went undrafted out of Virginia Union who thrived as an undersized 6-foot-9 center, being named NBA Defensive Player of the Year four times and All-Defensive berths six times.
Diabaté, by comparison, came from a pedigreed basketball background. Born in Paris, he played for club teams before moving to the U.S. at age 14, still grappling with his English. He attended three schools in Florida, with his final two years at IMG Academy in Bradenton.
He was a McDonald’s All-American as a senior, drawing interest from Kentucky, Arizona and Memphis before spending the 2021-22 season at Michigan. He submitted for the Draft after averaging 9.0 points and 6.0 rebounds, and was selected by the LA Clippers at No.43.
‘My motor is what brings everything else’
Charlotte center Moussa Diabaté has developed a knack for not backing down from any size of challenge.
Diabaté spent his first two seasons as a two-way player, splitting time in the NBA G League while making 33 appearances with the Clippers.
In July 2024, he signed a two-way deal with Charlotte. He was averaging 4.7 points and 7.1 rebounds in 42 games when Hornets management converted him to a standard contract. Exactly one year ago, in fact, on Feb. 8, 2025.
“I give our front office a ton of credit for identifying him from the G League and the Clippers,” Lee said. “They brought him in during the summer, and we watched him work out, helped him to simplify things.”
Lee was at a wedding in San Francisco one weekend that summer when Diabaté called him excitedly, after a routine workout.
“He wanted to know, ‘How can I be successful on a two-way contract?’” the coach said. “I’ll never forget that.”
Lee and his staff shuffled through 27 players and five centers last season, with only Diabaté among the bigs appearing in more than 44 games. He played 71, logging 1,241 minutes – nearly five times what he got from the Clippers in 2023-24.
“When you really come down to it, it’s about getting reps here,” Diabaté said. “The NBA is so big on getting experience. With the Clippers, it was a great organization, but I didn’t get reps. There was never a chance to actually showcase my game. Opportunities mean a better chance to prove and show what you have.”
There’s no question, with this guy, that it’s what’s under the hood, revving hard possession by possession.
“That’s 99% of what I do,” he said. “My motor is what brings everything else.”
Said Lee: “It’s his motor, but it’s an unselfishness as well. It feels like he doesn’t care about that. He’s willing to do all the dirty work, whether it be a physical screen or – even if he doesn’t get the rebound – by him going he knows he’s forcing two or three guys to try to keep him off the glass. That might equal an offensive rebound for another player on our team.
“There are so many things where his competitive spirit is so unselfish, our guys end up loving him for it.”
* * *
Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.