CHARLOTTE — The Charlotte Hornets came away from NBA awards season with both a leaguewide honor and a near miss.
Last week, Hornets center Moussa Diabate was named the winner of the 2025-26 NBA Hustle Award, while rookie sharpshooter Kon Knueppel finished second in a tight Rookie of the Year race won by Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg.
The Hustle Award, announced last week by the league, honors players who make effort plays that do not often appear in the traditional box score but impact winning on a nightly basis.
Unlike most NBA awards, the Hustle Award is not determined by a vote.
Instead, the league uses a formula that weighs nine hustle-related statistics: offensive box outs, defensive box outs, screen assists, contested 2-pointers, contested 3-pointers, offensive loose balls recovered, defensive loose balls recovered, deflections and charges taken.
Diabate, a four-year 24-year-old from France, won the award for the first time after becoming one of the Hornets’ most active interior players. He ranked in the top 11 in six of the nine categories used to determine the honor, including first in offensive box outs per minute and fourth in screen assists per minute.
He also averaged career highs of 7.9 points, 8.7 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 0.99 blocks and 0.77 steals in 26 minutes per game across 73 appearances. Diabate ranked fifth in the league in offensive rebounds per game at 3.7 and helped Charlotte finish 44-38, including a 31-16 mark in his 47 starts.
“It’s only the beginning,” Diabate said. “I very much see it this way. There are a lot of things that I need to do better, but I’m very hopeful and confident in my abilities and what I can do, especially after this year. For me, it’s all about steps. You don’t want to skip steps.”
Diabate’s high-energy approach made him a popular figure with Hornets fans during Charlotte’s turnaround season. His move into the starting lineup in late December also coincided with a shift in the team’s results, as Charlotte’s primary starting unit went on to produce the NBA’s top net rating from that point forward.
“Last year, it was about trying to find a way to make the team,” Diabate said. “This year, it was about making an impact, being a winning player and being elite at what I do. I think I was able to do a pretty good job with that. Definitely, it’s about adding more, getting stronger and having a better understanding of the game.”
The award gave the Hornets a winner during a week in which Knueppel came up just short of one of the league’s most high-profile individual honors.
Flagg, Knueppel’s former Duke teammate, was named the 2025-26 NBA Rookie of the Year after one of the closest votes in the award’s recent history. Flagg averaged 21 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.2 steals for Dallas, becoming the first rookie since Michael Jordan in 1984-85 to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists and steals.
Knueppel still made a strong case in his first NBA season.
The Charlotte guard averaged 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists while shooting 42.5% from 3-point range, playing a major role in the Hornets’ improvement by 25 wins as they reached the play-in tournament for the first time since 2022.
The former Duke standouts finished first and second in rookie scoring, becoming the first former college teammates to accomplish that since Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon in 2004-05.
While Flagg’s late-season scoring surge helped seal the vote, Knueppel’s rookie season gave Charlotte another building block for the future alongside LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller and the rest of the Hornets’ young core.
The NBA’s other announced award winners included San Antonio center Victor Wembanyama as Defensive Player of the Year, Atlanta guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker as Most Improved Player, San Antonio’s Keldon Johnson as Sixth Man of the Year and Oklahoma City guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as Clutch Player of the Year.
Boston’s Brad Stevens was named NBA Executive of the Year, New Orleans Pelicans center DeAndre Jordan won the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award and Boston guard Derrick White received the NBA Sportsmanship Award, with two Hornets also appearing in the final results.
Charlotte general manager Jeff Peterson finished fourth for Executive of the Year, while guard Pat Connaughton placed fifth for Teammate of the Year.
The league’s Most Valuable Player and Coach of the Year awards remain among the major honors still to be announced.
