My favorite Diaw story, comes from a former Suns front office guy:
quote:
"Boris walks into the gym one day wearing flip-flops and holding his customary cappuccino, which was a staple for him every morning," Griffin recalled. "It was during pre-draft workouts, so he sees the Vertec [machine] and asks what it is.
"We tell him it measures your vertical leap by determining how many of the bars you can touch. He asks what's the highest anyone has ever gone, and we tell him Amare' [Stoudemire] cleared the entire rack.
"Boris puts down the cappuccino, takes off his flip-flops and clears the entire rack on the first try. Then he calmly puts his flip-flops back on, picks up his cappuccino and walks away, saying, 'That was not difficult.'"
He was a great athlete at one point, and he still has very good balance and quick feet and hands.
The surest thing in the league is Diaw matched up on a little guy, because he has such incredible footwork, balance, and patience. Every time, he calmly, smoothly backs the frantic defender all the way under the basket. He freezes potential help defenders with his eyes; they KNOW that if they come over Bobo will hit the cutter for a layup. And then, when he's got the defender under the basket, no help in sight, and a big size advantage, he still uses moves and feints and body language to ensure that he's going up when the defender is flat footed or coming down. Bobo takes nothing for granted.
