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Moussa Diabaté, center, Charlotte

Look at the NBA’s leaders in offensive rebound rate, and you’ll see a bunch of behemoth centers who either stand over 7-feet, have brick wall physiques or both.

And then there is Diabaté, who started out as a small forward and played power forward at Michigan and in his first NBA years with the Clippers. Now he is making his mark as a hyperactive, board-crashing center with Charlotte.

Listed at 6-10 and 210 pounds — although Diabaté told me he’s up to “225 to 230” now — Diabaté would seem an unlikely candidate to sport a 19.0 percent offensive rebound rate. That rate is the highest of any player with at least 400 minutes played. Even if you lower the bar to 250, it’s topped by only two much bigger and broader players: Houston’s Steven Adams and New York’s Mitchell Robinson.

It took a while to build up to this point. A rail-thin forward at Michigan who showed good mobility, it seemed as if Diabaté’s best pathway to success would be as a tall 3-and-D perimeter player when the Clippers drafted him 43rd in 2022. But the “3” part never came around, and on a veteran Clippers team there wasn’t a lot of daylight for playing time — just 33 games and 259 minutes in two seasons.

Once he landed in Charlotte in 2024, injuries pressed Diabaté into service as an emergency center — a position he had barely played even at lower levels.

At that point, it became clear Diabaté’s bounce and energy were much more useful closer to the basket. Watch any Hornets game over the past two years, and, in the midst of what’s often been hard-to-watch basketball otherwise, you’re immediately struck by Diabaté flying around and corralling the torrent of missed shots coming off Hornets fingertips. He told me the rebounds are the result of his energy being harnessed in the right way.

“I really think that’s something that I always had, in the sense that I’ve always been somebody that had energy,” Diabaté said. “I think the offensive rebound is just an effect of my energy, if that makes sense.

“It’s not like I look for it specifically, like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m gonna get offensive rebounds.’ It’s more so, ‘OK, I gotta find a way to get going,’ or, ‘I just gotta play hard.’”

That same energy had also made him a vacuum cleaner on loose balls, even if it sometimes takes him two or three stabs to stick a fork in it, something his teammates rib him about.

“We give him crap about his hands,” teammate Kon Knueppel said. “He’ll drop a pass, but then he’ll go get an offensive rebound over three guys. His knack for the ball and just the shape he’s in, to be able to compete at that level is very, very impressive.”

Diabaté began last season on a two-way. Although promoted to a roster contract, he is still playing on a partially guaranteed, minimum deal this season and next. In terms of dollars per rebound, he’s been the best value in the league.