Moussa's Motor: How Diabaté has been unrelenting engine of Hornets' run

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).