Value Added

After two years of looking like money down the drain, Boris Diaw is showing his true worth

Sometimes they were college students grabbing a run between classes. Other times they were young working stiffs letting off steam after a day on the job. They weren't necessarily great ballplayers-this was France, after all-but their feistiness and size made for good competition, especially for a couple of youngsters who were always looking for a game.

The adults tolerated Boris Diaw and his brother, Martin, as long as the boys didn't go all shotcrazy. That was no problem for 12-year-old Diaw; he was happy just to be on the court. Every day the gangly kid with the long arms and legs walked through his quiet neighborhood in Pessac to the court at the nearby playgrounds. Once he got there, he did everything but shoot. He dribbled up court, stole a pass every once in a while, grabbed a deep rebound every now and then. But mostly what young Diaw did was look for the open man.

To many, this would have been reason enough to turn to volleyball. Not for Diaw. He passed to get praise from the older guys. He passed to keep his brother (who was less willing than he to bend to the grown-ups' ultimatums) off his case. And the more he gave up the ball, the more fun his teammates had. Years later, as he moved from the professional league's lower division to its higher ranks, he realized the game was easier when one guy was willing to share. And he liked being that guy.

By the time Diaw was 21, it wasn't just his teammates who appreciated his game. His squads won two French league championships, and the players voted him MVP in 2003, although he averaged just a little more than seven points per game. But this was France. After the Hawks drafted him 21st that summer, even the most supportive locals warned him that it would be different across the pond.

"My vision of basketball is that it's a team sport," Diaw says. "People told me before I came to the NBA and while I was in Atlanta that I'd have to change my game, that you've got to be selfish to be successful. But I didn't want to change. I love playing this way."

So Diaw came to Atlanta and continued to do what he always did.

And it didn't work.

The passing and court sense that had led the Hawks to compare him to Scottie Pippen now just annoyed them. The coaches rolled their eyes at one another each time their 6'8" swingman beat a man off the dribble, got to the cup and sacrificed a layup for a pass out to a teammate on the perimeter. The unselfishness that had prompted them to play Diaw at the point now looked like softness, and opponents began to sag off the reluctant shooter like a pair of relaxed-fit jeans.

His showing for his two seasons in Atlanta: 4.6 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 2.3 apg. Those numbers may get you raves in France, but in the States they get you benched. Diaw found himself fighting for minutes for the worst team in the league. Dejected, he asked for a trade. Atlanta said, "You bet."

They just needed to find a sucker.

IN THE spring of 2005, there were two men in the NBA who still thought Diaw was special: then-Suns president and GM Bryan Colangelo and thenassistant GM David Griffin. They'd never stopped beating themselves up for bypassing the Frenchman in the draft for another import, Zarko Cabarkapa, and believed the approach that made him a punch line in Atlanta would perfectly fit Mike D'Antoni's wide-open, Euro-friendly system. So when Joe Johnson told them he wanted out, that he wanted to be the man and that Atlanta was willing to give him his shot, they seized the second chance.

The Hawks were more than willing to include Diaw in a sign-and-trade deal for Johnson. And much more fuss was made in the postdeal analysis over the two future first-rounders they surrendered. The Suns, though, knew who the key to the package was.

These days, the rest of the league has figured it out as well. If the Suns' ability to stick among the league's best without Amare Stoudemire is one of the most impressive team accomplishments of the season, then Diaw's role in their perseverance is certainly one of the biggest individual stunners. The guy who barely got minutes on the worst team in the league is now crushing the comp, averaging 13.4 points, 6.7 rebounds and 6.1 assists a night. In two games against his old squad, he's gone for 19.5, 6 and 7, plus a couple of blocks in a couple of wins. He says they were just another opponent, but it doesn't seem that way.

Suns fans have taken to calling him 3-D, as much for his nightly flirtation with triple-doubles (he has two) as for his jersey number and initial. And here's the kicker: He's doing it all at power forward and center-not exactly the softest spots on the floor.

"No one ever doubted his skills," Hawks coach Mike Woodson says now, in a bit of rationalized hindsight. "Sometimes a player just doesn't mix with the team he's playing for. That happens."

ON A sunny day in February, a smiling, carefree Diaw-come to think of it, he's always smiling and carefree-enters the rust-color foyer of his four-bedroom stucco house in suburban Phoenix. A pool table sits smack in the middle of the living room, and there's a piano in a corner. Diaw heads right for it and sits down to play the only song he knows, the theme from The Godfather. "One of my friends from France goes to Juilliard," he says. "He's going to teach me how to play other stuff."

This is clearly a bachelor pad. Dozens of DVDs and video games are scattered haphazardly as if part of the decor. But there are also signs that this is a more sophisticated household. Diaw is just as likely to plop down and watch the Discovery Channel as MTV. Sculptures of black cheetahs flank the big screen, and arresting paintings of elephants, zebras, lions and tigers hang on the walls. Bottles of grape from Bordeaux take up much square footage in the kitchen.

Raised in southwestern France by his mom, Elizabeth Riffiod, one of the greatest female basketball players in the country's history, Diaw is proud to rep all things French in the southwestern United States. And although he often is seen in Nike or Jordan sweats, when it's time to step it up, he does so in Euro style, favoring sleek, tight-fitting suits. It makes him unmistakably different-the one instance in which he likes standing out.

But as the artwork attests, Diaw celebrates both sides of his heritage with vigor. Although he has never lived with his dad, the two have always been close. Issa, who met Elizabeth when he was a high jumper training in France, now practices law in his native Senegal. In the off-season, Diaw travels to Africa to visit Dad and to indulge his interest in wildlife photography.

Because his parents are so far away, Diaw depends on his posse to keep him company, although "posse" may be the wrong word. A basket of kittens isn't as friendly as his crew from France. As Diaw works at the piano, his buds swarm through the house. They're out back by the pool, surfing on the computer, lazing on the couches and flipping through the pages of one of the many French basketball magazines that are strewn about.

Today all the guests, including two cousins, are white. Next week Diaw may also have a house full of blacks, including his half brother, Paco, a freshman guard at Georgia Tech, or a house full of mixed company. Whatever the case, each crew gets the same Diaw, one who seems fairly close to color-blind and finds America's obsession with race odd and unsettling.

"He couldn't get over the fact that there was separation between blacks and whites here," says Josh Childress, Diaw's closest friend on the Hawks. "He was like, `In France, we just look at people as people, not as black or white.'

He'd ask me why it was like that, and I wouldn't have an answer for him."

Of course, that wasn't the only difference Diaw noticed when he first came to America. The overemphasis on one-on-one, get-yours play made him uncomfortable from the start. Eventually, although he denies it, he appeared to lose confidence in his abilities. Childress recalls nighttime two-on-two games in which he encountered a much more aggressive, entirely different Diaw than the one he'd see in real games and practices. And former teammates Al Harrington and Shareef Abdur-Rahim offer conspiratorial I-knew-it smiles and exaggerated head shakes when asked if they're surprised by

Diaw's emergence. "Dude could play," Harrington says bluntly.

THAT LOST confidence? Back with a vengeance. It's why Diaw has gone from bust to busting out. It certainly helps that D'Antoni's system, built on spacing and unselfishness, is the perfect fit for Diaw's skills and temperament. He's got the size, strength and smarts to D the 4 and 5, and on offense he's a matchup nightmare. Just ask Doc Rivers, who in late February nearly emptied his bench trying to handle Diaw. Burly Ryan Gomes, speedy Delonte West, 6'11" Raef LaFrentz, crafty Brian Scalabrine managed to hold Diaw to … 21 points, nine rebounds and six assists.

But Diaw's emergence isn't just a case of a player finding his place. With Suns assistant Phil Weber working extensively on Diaw's form, his oncehorrible jump shot is now reliable. And though he continues to think pass first, Diaw finally recognizes when to take advantage of a scoring opportunity. Most important, the Suns' "Up With People" approach has lifted his once-shattered pride. "It took us two months to beat the humility out of him," Griffin says with a chuckle.

These days, the "throw-in" is a nightly candidate for SportsCenter's Top 10, usually as the guy who pump-fakes centers off the floor, bursts by them and draws more defenders before tossing no-look alleys to Shawn Marion. Diaw has the best plus-minus on the squad. Yes, better than Steve Nash's.

"He's been the key in the sense that we didn't know what we had without Amare," D'Antoni says. "We were thinking we could win some games, but we knew it was going to be a struggle. When Diaw stepped up, it became a lot easier. I think he can be an All-Star one day."

Just before the Suns' home matchup against Charlotte in late February, Raja Bell sits at his locker talking about the guy everybody likes when forward James Jones strolls by. "Thank you, thank you," Jones squeals loudly, in a voice that brings to mind Latka from Taxi. Bell breaks up and repeats, "Thank you, thank you," in a similar tone. It's the new joke in the locker room, a mimic of the ever-polite Diaw, who thanks teammates for passing him a pair of socks or the rock. "He's one of those dudes who's always in a good mood," Bell says. "Sometimes I ask him to get angry, but it's just not in his personality. He's a good dude to have around because sometimes you'll be angry and he'll be sitting over there smiling and you can't help but laugh."

Brian Grant, who had Diaw and his entourage over for Thanksgiving dinner, keeps his explanation simple: "He's happy. He's French!"

The team's PR machine swears it takes Diaw two hours to get through a crowd of even 20 fans because he stops to share an enthusiastic greeting and conversation with each one. But Diaw says he can still feel like that little 12-year-old in the park, all shy and fidgety, in the presence of his childhood idol, Magic Johnson. He says being laid-back and letting the criticisms roll off his back is just his nature. Issa, Martin and Paco are the same way. "It must be my African side," Diaw says with a smile.

Suns players and coaches still cackle over Diaw's first encounter with Shaq this season. As Diesel went to work in the post, Diaw flopped, cleverly drawing a foul. An irate O'Neal turned and said menacingly, "If you do that again, I'll break your nose."

Unfazed and unhindered by the need for any B-boy bravado, Diaw responded, "I know you will," and continued to head up court. Shaq was left speechless. "How do you hit a guy that says that?" assistant Alvin Gentry asks, laughing heartily. "There's no comeback for that."

It's been a while, but Boris Diaw is everyone's favorite teammate again.

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