Moussa Diabate's name will be all over NBA headlines this week due to his role in the Charlotte Hornets-Detroit Pistons brawl, but don't let that distract you from the overwhelmingly positive season that Diabate is having.
In fact, Diabate's breakout 2025-26 has established a perfect blueprint for Cleveland Cavaliers big man Nae'Qwan Tomlin to follow.
Nae'Qwan Tomlin should model himself after Moussa Diabate
Diabate has been a huge reason for Charlotte's success this season. The 24-year-old center has emerged as an elite offensive rebounder, which is a result of his ravenous motor.
Defensively, Diabate uses his length and athleticism to protect the rim and act as a general disruptor. He's completely unafraid of contact and, in fact, embraces it, making it impossible to bully him down low. Just take a look at how Diabate reacted to mistreatment from the bigger Jalen Duren during the aforementioned brawl. He wanted all of the smoke.
For the Cavs, Tomlin can use Diabate as a model. He has a lot of the same physical gifts -- length, bounce, and deceptive strength. Like Diabate, Tomlin is also unafraid of physical play.
Motor and mentality are what make a good NBA big man, not just sheer size. The difference between a guy like Diabate and a less effective player like Deandre Ayton all comes down to desire and consistent effort. From a "want" standpoint, Tomlin is a heck of a lot closer to Diabate than Ayton, and that's great news for the Cavs.
Cleveland, of course, is well aware of Tomlin's motor. There's a reason the Cavaliers did the inevitable recently and converted Tomlin's two-way contract into a standard one.
The ongoing development of Tomlin, along with the reliable play of Thomas Bryant, gives Cleveland rock-solid depth in the frontcourt behind Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley. The Cavs are totally set there, even when one of these four guys misses time. Mobley is currently out, and Cleveland doesn't look undersized in the slightest.
Diabate was competing with Ryan Kalkbrenner for the starting center job in Charlotte before he simply played too hard and too effectively for Hornets head coach Charles Lee to ignore.
This isn't to suggest that Tomlin will earn a starting role in Cleveland, but he's already gone from two-way player to locking in a rotational spot on a contending NBA team. That's a tremendous achievement, and one that spells nothing but good things for the rest of Tomlin's career. He's still only 25.