{"id":107467,"date":"2024-11-17T13:30:58","date_gmt":"2024-11-17T18:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=107467"},"modified":"2024-11-17T13:30:58","modified_gmt":"2024-11-17T18:30:58","slug":"moussa-diabate-one-of-nbas-best-rebounders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/11\/17\/moussa-diabate-one-of-nbas-best-rebounders\/","title":{"rendered":"You May Not Know One Of NBA\u2019s Best Rebounders This Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

It wasn\u2019t too long ago that Andre Drummond<\/a> declared himself<\/a> as the best rebounder of all-time. Many laughed at the notion. If you look closer though, you can see that Drummond actually has a case, and it\u2019s not as far-fetched as it may seem.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old Drummond owns the highest total rebound percentage<\/a> in league history at 25.09%. He has won four rebounding titles in his career and has averaged 12.3 boards in 27.1 minutes per contest. While having the highest rebounding percentage of all-time doesn\u2019t necessarily make you the best rebounder ever, Drummond can at least stake his claim to that honor.<\/p>\n

Drummond is at least a well-known player though who has made two All-Star appearances in his career. I would venture to say that most people wouldn\u2019t know that they just walked past Moussa Diabat\u00e9<\/a> if they encountered him (although they would certainly notice his 6-foot-11 height).<\/p>\n

You May Not Know One Of NBA\u2019s Best Rebounders This Season<\/h2>\n

Diabat\u00e9 Grabbing Rebounds With The Best Of Them<\/h3>\n

The Charlotte Hornets<\/a> surely aren\u2019t one of the NBA\u2019s more popular teams. Fans aren\u2019t going to be able to witness their games frequently on national television. They haven\u2019t reached the postseason since 2016. So it\u2019s understandable if they aren\u2019t aware of what the 22-year-old Diabat\u00e9 has been doing early on this season.<\/p>\n

Diabate wasn\u2019t receiving much playing time for Charlotte at the start of the season. Over the first eight games, Diabat\u00e9 played just 11.3 minutes per contest. Now over the last four, that number has increased to 26.8. His rebounding totals in those games? Double-digits in each one at 15, 11, 15, and 14. Diabat\u00e9 had an incredible 10 offensive rebounds in Saturday\u2019s one-point win over the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the Hornets first 12 games, Diabat\u00e9 is averaging 7.6 rebounds in just 16.4 minutes per outing. That equates to 16.6 boards per 36 minutes. That places him second<\/a> in the NBA only behind Golden State Warriors<\/a> center Kevon Looney<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Diabat\u00e9 Now In His Third Season<\/h3>\n

Diabat\u00e9 was selected in the second round (43rd overall) by the Los Angeles Clippers<\/a> in the 2022 NBA Draft. He played one season collegiately for Michigan where he averaged a solid, but unspectacular, 6.0 rebounds while playing 24.9 minutes per game.<\/p>\n

Over his first two NBA seasons, Diabat\u00e9 barely saw any playing time for the Clippers. He appeared in just 33 games for Los Angeles in 2022-23 and 2023-24 for a grand total of just 259 minutes. Diabat\u00e9 instead saw much more action over those two years with the Ontario Clippers of the G League.<\/p>\n

During his time with the Clippers, he grabbed 74 rebounds in 259 minutes. That\u2019s good for 10.3 rebounds per 36 minutes, a good number but nowhere near what we have seen in Charlotte. Diabat\u00e9 has already grabbed 17 more rebounds with the Hornets than he did with the Clippers, and that\u2019s with playing 62 less minutes with Charlotte.<\/p>\n

Can Diabat\u00e9 continue to look like prime Dennis Rodman<\/a> on the glass? They play Sunday against the 14-0 Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a>. A huge upset win by Charlotte with a stellar performance by Diabat\u00e9 could get more eyes on him. Even with an expected loss though, his work on the boards needs to be appreciated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It wasn\u2019t too long ago that Andre Drummond declared himself as the best rebounder of all-time. Many laughed at the notion. If you look closer though, you can see that Drummond actually has a case, and it\u2019s not as far-fetched as it may seem. The 31-year-old Drummond owns the highest total rebound percentage in league […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":107509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,7,62,3],"tags":[341,866,4659,2604],"class_list":["post-107467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-hornets","category-nba","category-news","tag-andre-drummond","tag-michigan-wolverines","tag-moussa-diabate","tag-rebounding"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}