Moussa Diabaté was back on the practice floor Wednesday, and the Hornets are hoping that’s the first step toward getting their starting center back in the lineup.
Charlotte coach Charles Lee said Diabaté took part in part of practice with limited contact as the team prepared for Thursday’s opener of a four-game road trip in Phoenix. Diabaté has missed the last two games because of right quadriceps tendinopathy, but Lee said the big man is moving in the right direction.
“He was able to do some of practice today,” Lee said. “It wasn’t a ton of contact, but fact that he’s feeling a little bit better and participating in some of these drills shows he’s trending in the right direction... He’s still in that day-to-day.”
Diabaté had started all nine of Charlotte’s first games before landing on the Nov. 5 injury report as questionable. He sat out the NBA Cup game against Boston the next day, then was listed questionable again Monday before the Hornets decided to keep him out once more.
In his absence, Ryan Kalkbrenner has drawn both starts. Boston handled Charlotte by 39 in the first one, but Kalkbrenner responded Monday with 15 rebounds as the Hornets beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 124-112 and snapped a six-game skid.
Charlotte enters the trip at 4-7 and ninth in the East. The team has also dropped its last three road games.
The injury list around Diabaté keeps growing, too. Brandon Miller missed Monday’s game with a right hip strain and remains day-to-day.
Kon Knueppel, who made his season debut Nov. 4, tweaked his left hamstring again, and the Hornets said they’ll re-evaluate him in four weeks. Dennis Schröder has been dealing with soreness in his left thigh, while Grant Williams is still working his way back from a right hamstring strain suffered in an offseason workout.
Diabaté’s rise in Charlotte has been steady since the team first signed him in July 2024 on a two-way deal. The Clippers had taken him with the No. 43 pick out of Michigan two years earlier.
Charlotte converted him to a standard contract in February 2025, giving him a three-year deal worth $5.69 million. This season is the final year of that contract, and his $2,461,462 salary is guaranteed.
Last season, Diabaté played in 73 games and started 47 of them. He averaged 7.9 points, 8.7 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 26 minutes per game, all career highs, while ranking fifth in the NBA with 3.7 offensive rebounds per game.
The Hornets went 35-18 after he became a full-time starter on Dec. 23 and finished 44-38. The league rewarded him with the Hustle Award on April 30.
For Diabaté, though, the mindset hasn’t changed.
“It ain’t changed,” Diabaté said. “I think I have the same perspective.
At the end of the day, I ain’t really accomplished nothing. I’m still looking at it the same way I was looking at it when I first came in, trying to prove something.
“I think at the end of the day, that’s the only way to do it, right?” Diabaté continued.
“I’m going to play as hard as I can, trying to get better each and every day. And, yeah, really, that’s the whole point.
So it doesn’t change.”
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