Charles Lee Makes Strong Hannes Steinbach Claim as Hornets Turn to Rookie

Moussa Diabaté was questionable for Friday's game against the Boston Celtics when the league's 10:15 a.m. ET report came out. By 5 p.m., the Charlotte Hornets had ruled him out with right quadriceps tendinopathy, and Dennis Schröder went with him, out with left thigh soreness.

Kon Knueppel and Grant Williams were already listed out on the morning report, each with a hamstring strain that dates to the offseason.

Diabaté had 7 points and 6 rebounds in Wednesday's 114-104 loss at Brooklyn. Four of the rebounds came on the offensive glass.

“You can expect a guy that has a very high basketball IQ, high motor,” Hornets coach Charles Lee said of rookie Hannes Steinbach before the game. “Offensively, I think that he’s been a monster on the boards. Any practice situation we have, he’s got such great hands and such great feel to make some passes.”

“Really excited to see him out on the court today,” Lee continued. “I think he’s going to bring an edge and probably bring a little bit of juice. Your first NBA action, I think he’s going to be flying around the court. But I’d rather have that than someone that I’ve got to try to rev up.”

Steinbach did not play in the Oct. 21 opener at Brooklyn, a coach's decision. He made his NBA debut two nights later in a blowout loss to the Atlanta Hawks. On Oct. 30 at Washington, he played two minutes and missed his only shot in a 95-79 loss, and he has averaged 7.7 minutes across his three appearances.

At Summer League in Las Vegas in July, Steinbach averaged 15.8 points and 9.2 rebounds in four games and shot 60.2%. He had 15 points and a game-high 11 rebounds in the opener, a win over Orlando, then averaged 24.5 points and 13 rebounds over his final two games, including one with 7 offensive rebounds.

“Yeah, I just love playing physical, love to make contact,” Steinbach said that month.

Steinbach was the Big Ten Freshman of the Week in early December 2025 after averaging 26.5 points and 13 rebounds in a home loss to UCLA and an 84-76 win at USC, where Washington trailed by 18 at halftime. Huskies coach Danny Sprinkle said that week that Steinbach was “literally like Dennis Rodman” chasing offensive rebounds.

A year before that, he was playing for Würzburg in Germany's Basketball Bundesliga. He grabbed a career-high 18 rebounds there in a semifinal opener against Ulm, and in Game 5 of the quarterfinals, he had 20 points and 10 rebounds in a 97-88 series-clinching win over Braunschweig.

Würzburg is home. He was born there May 1, 2006, the son of retired player Burkhard Steinbach, and Dirk Nowitzki, another Würzburg native, sent him a video that ESPN played on its draft-night set.

The Hornets list him at 6-foot-10 and 248 pounds. Charlotte took him 14th on June 23 and drafted Texas Tech guard Christian Anderson Jr. at 18. Steinbach's rookie scale deal is worth $24,981,907 over four years and starts at $5,227,200.

Friday's opponent is the franchise where Lee worked as an assistant on the 2023-24 title team.

“A man that I worked for before in Boston, he’d always say, ‘Nobody cares,’ and nobody cares if you have injuries, and you just gotta keep trucking and keep competing,” Lee explained. “We know what our identity is, and we got players that gotta play to that identity and to those standards.”

The Hornets, losers of five straight, host the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday at 7 p.m. ET.