The NBA is continuing to hand out new awards this offseason that many casual, or even more serious, fans might never have heard of.
While the biggest annual awards include NBA Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player, lesser-known awards include Clutch Player, Twyman–Stokes Teammate of the Year, and Kia NBA Hustle Award. These particular trophies or plaques weren’t even a consideration during some basketball legends’ careers.
An award for Clutch player is one of the newest, having debuted four seasons ago, and with winners including the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry and this year’s recipient, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Curry won that award for the 2023-24 season, and after this past Warriors season, his teammate Draymond Green was up for another newer award: the Hustle Award.
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However, the NBA recently announced that a newer player in the league, Charlotte Hornets forward/center Moussa Diabaté, was this year’s winner. Diabaté, 24, joined the Hornets in 2024 after several seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers.
“The award honors a player who makes effort plays that do not often appear in the box score but help drive team success,” the league said in its announcement.
Diabaté, a big man from France, averaged 7.9 points and 8.7 rebounds in 26.0 minutes per game for Charlotte this past season. He was a crucial part of a Hornets team that seemed to overachieve this past season, given pre-season expectations from various analysts and critics.
They made noise by achieving a hot winning streak during the season, and then again when they won a play-in tournament game. However, the Hornets failed to reach the postseason, needing another win but were unable to defeat the Orlando Magic in their second play-in game to secure the No. 8 seed.
Green won the award after last season and was looking to become the first repeat winner since Marcus Smart claimed it for his 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons. Smart, now a member of the Los Angeles Lakers’ roster, has won the award three times in his career, which says a lot about his contributions on the hardwood, too.
Other runner-up players for this year’s award included the Atlanta Hawks’ Dyson Daniels, the Memphis Grizzlies ‘ Cedric Coward, and the New York Knicks’ Josh Hart. Daniels and Hart are currently part of a first-round playoff battle between their squads, with the Knicks looking to advance with a win on Thursday night.
While Green didn’t win this year’s award, it would seem he’ll be on pace for it in most seasons he plays, depending on how long his NBA career lasts. There is also that looming uncertainty over where he’ll be playing in those future seasons, as Golden State seems to remain among the teams that could make a blockbuster trade to pair Giannis Antetokounmpo up with Stephen Curry.
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