{"id":87828,"date":"2024-07-29T20:12:32","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T00:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=87828"},"modified":"2024-07-29T20:12:32","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T00:12:32","slug":"hornets-sign-g-league-moussa-diabate-standout-to-two-way-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/07\/29\/hornets-sign-g-league-moussa-diabate-standout-to-two-way-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Hornets Sign G League Standout To Two-Way Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/07\/20\/hornets-should-sign-ivy-league-grad-after-perfect-shooting-night\/\" target=\"_self\">Charlotte Hornets<\/a> are bringing in <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/diabamo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Moussa Diabate<\/a> on a two-way contract. Charlotte previously had one two-way slot open <a  href=\"https:\/\/gleague.nba.com\/twowayplayers\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as the other two<\/a> are currently occupied by <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/blackle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Leaky Black<\/a>\u00a0who appeared in 26 games for the Hornets in 2023-24 and 2024 second-round pick <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/simpskj01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KJ Simpson<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Free agent F\/C Moussa Diabate has agreed on a two-way deal with the Charlotte Hornets, sources tell ESPN. Diabate \u2014 the 43rd pick in the 2022 NBA Draft out of Michigan \u2014 played 33 games for the Clippers in the past two seasons. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Gt8le1YruX\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/Gt8le1YruX<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wojespn\/status\/1817941398160548166?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 29, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Hornets Sign G League Standout To Two-Way Contract<\/h2>\n<h3>Diabate Spent First Two Seasons With The Clippers<\/h3>\n<p>The six-foot-11 Diabate was selected in the second round (43rd overall) by the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/07\/23\/former-los-angeles-clippers-star-gets-brutally-honest-about-team-paul-george\/\" target=\"_self\">Los Angeles Clippers<\/a> in the 2022 NBA Draft. He spent each of his first two seasons in the NBA on two-way deals with Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>Most of his playing time has come in the G League through two years. \u00a0As a rookie in 2022-23, Diabate got into 22 games with the Clippers playing a total of 195 minutes. He posted per-game averages of 2.7 points and 2.3 rebounds. Diabate scored a career-high of 13 points on January 29, 2023 in a matchup against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/24\/cavaliers-hire-warriors-assistant-as-head-coach\/\" target=\"_self\">Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In his following season, Diabate received even less playing time with the Clippers. He only got into 11 games totaling 64 minutes. His averages of 2.6 points and 2.2 rebounds are\u00a0very similar to those in his rookie year.<\/p>\n<p>Diabate was a nightly double-double threat when playing in the G League for the Ontario Clippers. Over the two seasons, the 22-year-old center would play in 32 regular season games for Ontario. He averaged 15.8 points, 11.5 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.5 steals, and 1.6 blocks. In 2022-23, <a  href=\"https:\/\/gleague.nba.com\/news\/windy-city-bulls-carlik-jones-headlines-2022-23-all-nba-g-league-teams\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">he was selected<\/a> to the All-NBA G League Third Team. Diabate did show signs of improvement in his second G League season. His turnovers decreased by half (3.2 per game in 2022-23, 1.6 in 2023-24), and he nearly doubled his average in blocks (1.1 in 2022-23, 2.1 in 2023-24).<\/p>\n<h3>One-And-Done In College<\/h3>\n<p>Born in France, Diabate moved to the United States once entering high school. Playing for IMG Academy in Florida, he was named to the McDonald\u2019s All-American Game as a senior. He then moved on to play collegiately at <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/30\/michigan-big-ten-basketball-preview-2024-25-conference-darkhorse\/\" target=\"_self\">Michigan<\/a> under <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/howarju01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Juwan Howard<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As a freshman, Diabate averaged 9.0 points and 6.0 rebounds. It was enough to see him named to the <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.btpowerhouse.com\/2022\/3\/8\/22967474\/official-2021-22-all-big-ten-honors-basketball-award-johnny-davis-murray-gard-branham-stat-dickinson\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Big Ten All-Freshman Team<\/a>. One year at Michigan was enough for Diabate to believe he should enter his name in the 2022 NBA Draft where he was later drafted by the Clippers.<\/p>\n<p>Diabate will now look to find his way to earning playing time with the Hornets or remain in the G League. The team rosters starting center <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/willima07.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark Williams<\/a> (who was hurt much of last season) and backup <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/r\/richani01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nick Richards<\/a>. Charlotte also signed longtime veteran center <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gibsota01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Taj Gibson<\/a> in free agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the Charlotte Hornets are bringing in Moussa Diabate on a two-way contract. Charlotte previously had one two-way slot open as the other two are currently occupied by Leaky Black\u00a0who appeared in 26 games for the Hornets in 2023-24 and 2024 second-round pick KJ Simpson. Free agent F\/C Moussa [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":87914,"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":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1608,62,3],"tags":[49059,4659],"class_list":["post-87828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hornets","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-2024-nba-free-agents","tag-moussa-diabate"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87828","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=87828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}