NBA Hands Moussa Diabaté Award Quite Literally Made for Him

The NBA's annual Hustle Award belongs to Charlotte Hornets big man Moussa Diabaté for the 2025-26 season. This is the fifth year of the award, and Diabaté now joins Marcus Smart, Alex Caruso, and Draymond Green as winners.

There is honestly no better player for the award than the Hornets center. Hustle defines how he plays, and it doesn't show up in the box score, which is the definition of this particular award.

What's interesting is that this isn't based on a vote. Analysts who watched the Hornets in 2025-26 undoubtedly saw the hustle Diabaté displayed and what it meant to the team, but this was based purely on metrics.

Hustle stats include deflections, loose ball recoveries, charges drawn, and so much more that isn't just a rebound, assist, or block. Diabaté does it all better than the rest of the NBA, though.

He leads in offensive box-outs per minute (11th on the defensive end). He's fourth in the league in screen assists. Diabaté is 10th and 11th in contesting twos and threes, respectively.

The center ranks in the top 10 in offensive loose balls recovered as well. While this doesn't play a role in the award, it doesn't hurt that Charlotte took off roughly a week after Diabaté became the full-time starter.

Charlotte Hornets forward Moussa Diabate (14) handles the ball during the second half | Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

With the win, Diabaté defeated Dyson Daniels, Draymond Green, Cedric Coward, and Josh Hart. It's the first seasonal award for a Hornets player since LaMelo Ball took home the Rookie of the Year award in 2020-21.

It is a testament to who Diabaté is, and it's the most fitting award given out. Hornets fans have seen what he does on the court and lamented that it doesn't show up in the good-but-not-great slash line of 7.9 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 1.9 assists.

But looking further into it, which this award did, paints a better picture. Diabaté was maybe the most impactful Hornets player. As a starter, the Hornets were 10.7 points better with him on the floor than on the bench.

That's technically the highest mark among Hornets (Josh Green was at 10.7 as well), but it's more impressive on a league-wide scale. Among players with 1600 minutes played, Diabaté ranks seventh in that metric, slightly ahead of LaMelo Ball.

He's only behind Dyson Daniels, Bam Adebayo, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Kawhi Leonard, Victor Wembanyama, and Nikola Jokic. Now, the Hornets star has some hardware to prove his impact.

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