Rumors

Jorge Sierra: Shai passed all these players in playoff scoring last night: Derrick White, Bill Cartwright, Boris Diaw, Derek Harper, Kiki Vandeweghe, Phil Chenier, Tobias Harris, Jeff Mullins, Dennis Rodman, Alvan Adams, Bob Love, Trevor Ariza, Zelmo Beaty. He's No. 216 all-time now.

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“There’s a number of French players in the NBA right now – younger players – that are very talented and competitive, and you can see their progression and see how their career is going to have that arc,” Snyder said. “We have one of them on our team in Zacch. Like I’ve said before, his competitiveness is unique, especially for his age. Rudy [Gobert] had that level of fight in him. Rudy was incredibly competitive. anybody that watches Rudy and Zacch play, they’re different players, but they’re very unique.” Snyder coached Gobert when he was on the Utah Jazz, and he watched him turn into a Defensive Player of the Year. He also was able to coach Boris Diaw, who was known as a “do it all” type of player when he was in the league.

Clutch Points

“I don't think I coached a player that passed the ball better than Boris Diaw. Just his feel for the game,” Snyder said. Snyder has echoed the same sentiments about Risacher's growth through the season, and it looks like he's starting to figure things out more and more as the year winds down. “I think with Zacch we’ve seen not just flashes, but periods of time where [he’s growing]. I’ve mentioned this about his success not being linear where he has opportunities in games where he does something, and you’re like, ‘Okay.’ For me, things I’ve seen him working on, sometimes for people who are just watching, that’s a flash that they haven’t seen the work that’s been put in,” Snyder said.

Clutch Points

French national team general manager Boris Diaw commented on Victor Wembanyama in light of the San Antonio Spurs superstar being diagnosed with a blood clot in his right shoulder. “I don’t know anything yet—we haven’t talked—but the doctors will make the right decision,” Diaw said to Basketball Sphere.

EuroHoops.net

How confident are you about Victor Wembanyama’s future in the NBA playing for a franchise that you know so well? Boris Diaw: I think San Antonio is good for him because they can protect him, help him grow at his own pace, and yeah, he’s already improving, getting better every year. And so he has great, great, great potential, and he’ll just keep improving. We don’t know how far he can go, you know, what’s the ceiling, so everybody’s just watching and trying to help him grow as well, and he’s doing a great job personally as well.

HoopsHype

GOAT debate: A silly one, or do you have a candidate? Boris Diaw: I think it’s silly. You cannot compare different generations. I think you can pick a GOAT like for every 10 years. Like the GOAT of the 80s, the GOAT of the 90s, 00s… I don’t think you can compare the NBA in the 80s with the NBA in the 2010s. It’s different games, different rules, different ways to referee. It’s just very different.

HoopsHype

Who was the GOAT of your generation then? A tough decision between your teammate Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant? Boris Diaw: [Laughs] That’s tough. But yeah, for me, it was so hard to guard Kobe at some point that… He was the one in our generation, he was amazing. But obviously, I love TD and he was an amazing teammate. So if I had to pick the GOAT of teammates it would be TD, I think he was a better teammate.

HoopsHype

How important has Gregg Popovich been in your life? Boris Diaw: He is a great, great coach and a great mentor. A person who has done so much for this franchise, and the teams that he’s coached. So during my time there, I felt that Spurs culture, the Spurs family, and Pop was just a big part of it. I had a great time.

HoopsHype

Here’s what Booth told me over the summer in a quote that didn’t make my opening-night story, after I asked if Braun’s minutes increasing throughout the 2022-23 season was a template for the 2023-24 rookie class: “I think Malone will have to play them. Hunter and Julian, these guys can manufacture points on their own. And I like the balance between Jamal and Jalen, who has been basically Joker Lite wherever he’s been. What happens when Jalen goes out there with Jokic and the ball’s moving around with both of those guys? It’s going to be like San Antonio with Boris Diaw.” Things didn’t pan out as expected, though. Strawther shot only 29.7 percent from 3 in his 545 regular-season minutes. Pickett appeared in only 122 minutes, sharing the floor with Jokic for just 35 and with Murray for none. Tyson played only 48 minutes, even fewer than Nuggets players on two-way contracts, despite excelling in the G League. Instead, Malone played four of his five starters even more minutes than they did last season (only Murray didn’t, due to his injuries). Malone valued pursuing home-court advantage over managing minutes and distributing playing time to younger players, and it ended up not mattering in the end with Denver losing three home games to Minnesota.

The Ringer

Siutat and Diaw are adamant that Embiid told them on multiple occasions during the 2021-22 NBA season that he wanted to play for France. “Joel came to us and said that he wanted to play international basketball, he said he wanted to win, and he said he wanted to play for France and he wanted to win with France,” Diaw told The Athletic. “So we listened to him.”

The Athletic

“We learned about it the same day,” Siutat said. “It’s not so easy to get the passport. We do this because he asked us, and we were very happy to welcome him. At the end of the story, he decided to go to the U.S. team. “It’s done for me, but you know, you don’t have to ask for the passport.” Embiid, who is still recovering from surgery to repair a meniscus tear in February, was not made available to The Athletic by his personal spokesman. That spokesman said: “We understand they (the French) are disappointed. Joel was clear that he would make a decision when he was ready, and they chose to secure his citizenship in anticipation. Joel loves all three of the countries he calls home and will continue to find ways to support all of them.”

The Athletic

Swish Cultures: Boris Diaw (@theborisdiaw ) NEVER scored a bucket with his left hand during his career which included 14 seasons in the NBA 🤯 (via @bmatke3 podcast)

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Jeff McDonald: Boris Diaw is participating in three-on-three action after Spurs shootaround.

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Michael Jordan, especially early on his tenure as owner, was hands-on. He would make himself accessible to players. Occasionally, he even reminded them of why he’s, arguably, the greatest player of all time. Gerald Henderson: We were getting our ass kicked for about a week. I show up to the training room the next morning. I was a rookie so I had to get my stuff out of the way first and he’s already in there stretching and he’s got practice gear on. I said “What are you about to do, man?” He said “I’m gonna come up there and kick y’all ass.” He’s in there talking s–t for however long. He comes up there and he gets into our scrimmages. He jumped on our second team. Our first team had like Stephen Jackson, Gerald Wallace, Raymond Felton, and — who else started that year? — Boris Diaw. On our second team it was me, Derrick Brown, DJ Augustin, maybe Tyrus Thomasand somebody else. He looked like prime Michael Jordan, without the quickness and the jumping ability. But it was just all MJ work. Talking smack the whole time.

The Athletic