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Diaw could be easy fit with Spurs
Before the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Dallas Mavericks on Friday, anticipation had been set for the debut of the Spurs’ newest addition, 
Boris Diaw.
For Diaw, coming from a losing situation with the Charlotte Bobcats to a contender in the Spurs in less than a week has been a big change, then throw in the fact that one of his best friends from France is also on the team and the dream of playing with Tony Parker in the NBA could be surreal.
And then insert Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, when he was told by a French reporter that it had been Parker and Diaw’s dream to play together since age 15, Popovich gave a “Pop” response.
“That’s sweet,” said Popovich. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to coach now. I just hope they have fun, I hope they go to dinner afterwards. I hope it’s lovey dovey the whole night.”
After we all laughed with Popovich, he did admitted that signing Diaw is a good move for his team.
“He’s an all around player. There aren’t too many people that are all-around players.”
As for Parker and Diaw’s play with the Spurs, Popovich just wants Diaw to stay in continuation with what the Spurs are already doing.
“I just want them to play within the system and to do what we do. It’s about the group.”
Diaw looked like he had been playing with the Spurs for several seasons as he meshed with the team so easily on both ends of the floor Friday, Manu Ginobili gave one key reason why it was so easy for him to fit in well.
“Tony did a good job on running the same Spurs plays in the French National team,” Ginobili said, “and that kind of helps.”
Diaw himself admitted that both squads use the same plays, “They have a lot of the offensive sets we use in the French National team. That’s the unselfishness of playing on this team.”
When asked if it’s more fun playing in a packed and loud AT&T Center, as opposed to a silent Bobcats arena, Diaw said he enjoyed the experience.
“It was nice playing in an arena like this,” Diaw said. “I can get used to it.”
I was reading an article on our defense and how Diaw statistically speaking is the best isolation defender of any of our big men rotation, although he is awful in contesting shots (on switches) and mediocre on P&R and other defenses. In the same article it said that Matt Bonner is the 4th best post defender in the league..... (yeah I was shocked too!!). On overall defense Tim Duncan is the 2nd best big man behind Dwight Howard, so why is our defense still mediocre? While our big men rotation is not the best in the league it only allows around 19% of the points scored against us while using about 35% of the minutes, that's very good numbers. The problem with our defense is on perimeter and getting Captain Jack should help with that to some extent. Having Leonard, SJ Tim and Tiago in the lineup should actually make our line up one of the best possible defensive combinations in the entire league, I really hope pop starts to use that line up more so our players can get acclimated.
The notion that Blair and Bonner cannot play together is just wrong, with both of them in the line up Our defense performs Average, as a matter of fact every time Duncan comes off the line up no matter who is subbed in we are a worse defensive team but a much better offensive team!!! It's interesting to note that Tim has been so great defensively that even though we are not as prolific on offense with him we're still a plus on +/- because of his stellar defensive presence.
There's much hope Spurs fans looks like Duncan can play D much better than the past few seasons and that's a tremendous + for us moving forward, just a better perimeter defense and we should be ready to challenge the field for the championship.
Diaw is a very solid player in all aspects of the game, can he help the Spurs win...yes, can he help them win a championship....possibly, don't get me wrong i like the acquisition of Diaw but he's not the answer. Boris Diaw is a great piece of the puzzle to the Spurs and their championship ambitions.
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Diaw is going to a real good "glue" guy, on a team full of great shooters he is a great passer, great defender and rebounder. With him and Jax, Green, Leonard, we just became the nasty Defensive team like back in the day. Maybe good enough to make up for Bonner/Blair.....
Yea, Diaw should sign a longer contract and stay after the season The spurs sure could use some good player. A little time for conditioning and Diaw will be back to his old self..
