Boris Diaw, a former Most Improved Player award winner and key member of the San Antonio Spurs’ 2014 championship team, is done playing basketball.
In a video posted to his Twitter account, the 36-year-old officially announced his retirement on a boat with Charlotte Hornets guard Tony Parker and Rony Turiaf in a Bros. Stories video. Turiaf, Diaw and Parker are all countrymen, having starred for the French national team in years past.
This is it… It was a good run. @tonyparker @Ronny_Turiaf @bros_stories Full video https://t.co/dAH95VO1c4 pic.twitter.com/aD41XBvYXy
— Boris Diaw (@theborisdiaw) September 6, 2018
Diaw has not played in the NBA since the 2016-17 season, which he spent with the Utah Jazz. They waived him last summer and Diaw spent last year with Levallois Metropolitans of the LNB Pro A league in France.
Diaw was selected No. 21 overall in the 2003 Draft by the Atlanta Hawks and spent his first two seasons with the team. He was then dealt to the Phoenix Suns in August of 2005 as a part of the Hawks’ acquisition of former All-Star Joe Johnson. In Phoenix, Diaw’s game took a tremendous leap, as he 13.3 points, 6.9 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game in 81 games en route to being named the Most Improved Player for the 2005-06 season.
After roughly 2 1/2 more seasons in Phoenix, the Suns dealt him to the then-Charlotte Bobcats (now Hornets) for Jason Richardson, Jared Dudley and others.
Diaw was considered a rising star in the early portion of his career in Phoenix, a lithe, athletic, big man with the vision of a point guard that flourished with the run-and-gun Suns. But his career nose-dived soon after when he was traded to the Charlotte Bobcats in 2008. He put on weight and didn’t appear interested in playing for a team with no hope of contending.
The Bobcats waived Diaw near the end of the 2012 season, and the Spurs brought him in to see if he could rediscover his game while playing alongside close friend and countryman Parker.
That’s exactly what happened.
He provided some essential versatility on both ends of the court for the Spurs in 2013-14, averaging 9.1 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.8 assists and shot over 52 percent in 25 minutes per game that season. The Spurs won the championship in 2014 and Diaw was a critical piece in that run, averaging 9.2 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 3.4 apg as San Antonio ousted the Miami Heat in five games.
He re-signed with the Spurs in the summer of 2014 and spent two more seasons in San Antonio before he was traded to the Utah Jazz before the start of the 2016-17 season.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
