The Toronto Raptors have reached out to the Utah Jazz to inquire about Boris Diaw, according to a report from Tony Jones of the Salt Lake Tribune.
The headline now says “had” because Shams Charania reports the Jazz have waived him ahead of his guarantee date. Most of the analysis that follows still holds, it’s just that if the Raptors are interested, they can work him through the free agent market. But who knows? Maybe this was a last-ditch effort by his agent or Utah to drum up interest. Anyway, it’s content, I guess?
The Jazz have reportedly been shopping Diaw in an attempt to recoup something in return or at least unload his salary ahead of Saturday’s guarantee date on his deal. If Utah can’t find a home for him by then, they may be forced to waive him, as the team needs the financial wiggle room and Diaw’s $7.5-million salary becomes fully guaranteed on that date.
The Jazz don’t have a ton of leverage here, given that their alternative to trading him might be to just cut him loose. That’s a positive if the Raptors are legitimately interested, as they’ve already dealt five draft picks in the last five months and probably wouldn’t be willing to offer a great deal, anyway. Diaw’s contract could be absorbed into the trade exception the Raptors created by dealing Cory Joseph to the Indiana Pacers, though Toronto would have to send something back in order to stay beneath the hard-cap they triggered by signing C.J. Miles with the non-taxpayer mid-level exception.
(The Raptors presently sit a shade above the tax for the purposes of the apron calculation, though some of that amount is tied up in unlikely bonuses for their two All-Stars. Full contract details aren’t made publicly available, so we have to make some assumptions in these cases. Lucas Nogueira would seem to be a likely outbound piece if Toronto needed to clear additional space, though he’s sort of become a one-man welcoming committee with the team’s newer and younger players, and he was terrific in a small sample of play last season. The Raptors also haven’t technically waived Justin Hamilton yet, so they could conceivably send him out to save a sliver of cap hit down the line, saving the Joseph exception. If Utah would accept that, anyway.)
In Diaw, the Raptors would find a gifted frontcourt passer and a nice fit as they attempt to vary their style of play some. While it’s true that the Raptors’ offense has been a drag on the passing numbers and assist percentage of basically every big who has come through the last few years, none of had the singular passing ability and vivacious approach to moving the basketball that Diaw possesses. He owned an assist percentage north of 20 percent last year and has hovered in the high teens and low 20s for most of his career, and while that comes with a cost in terms of turnovers, he’s about as big an addition as the team could make at this stage in terms of adding a piece that could fundamentally help shift the offensive aesthetic.
Outside of passing, Diaw’s utility has tapered off some, completely understandable for a 35-year-old. His 3-point shooting fell off a cliff a season ago after a solid four-year stretch, but it’s still enough of a show-me weapon given the way he’s generally been used in offenses. Toronto would probably ask him to take a greater percentage of his shots from outside, as they do of most power forwards and as the San Antonio Spurs did while Diaw was employed there. He also retains a quality post game, and it’s from that position that some of his niftiest passes get fired. In any case, he’s not going to chew up many possessions himself, clocking in at a steady 16-percent usage rate for his career and in recent years.
Defensively, Diaw isn’t exactly fleet of foot anymore, which has hurt his defensive impact someone given that he’s generally played as an undersized center at that end and isn’t much of a shot-blocker. His shaky defensive rebounding also declined, likely because the Jazz took him out of that center spot some. Utah was a shade worse with him on the court at that end last year, but there’s some noise there given how elite the team defense was overall, and multi-year defensive real plus-minus grades Diaw as something close to a neutral defender. Diaw’s role probably wouldn’t be big enough for this to be a huge detriment to Toronto, so long as they avoided pairing him with Jonas Valanciunas.
Diaw could also be a boon to a locker room that hasn’t always had a steady veteran presence the last few years. Luis Scola and Bismack Biyombo played an important role in that regard, but P.J. Tucker is outbound now, and Patrick Patterson’s loss could be felt from a cultural perspective. Given the speculation about trust in the Raptors’ locker room courtesy of DeMarre Carroll on his way out the door, the Raptors may feel inclined to add another experienced voice. Even if it’s not that, the fun-loving, world-travelling, wine-sipping, espresso-making, photo-journalist would be an exceptional boost to the team’s culture, a genuinely jovial person who would seem, on the surface, to be an ideal connector of people.
All told, the Raptors checking in on Diaw makes sense. It’s probably not worthwhile to swallow his contract, shed a piece in the process to make room, and commit to the tax all for a bench big you’d hope that Pascal Siakam can jump in the rotation, anyway, but it would be understandable, especially if it was just one piece of several more as the Raptors continue to reshape their roster and cap sheet for future years. The savvier play might be to check in on Diaw enough to gauge the likelihood he’s waived, then try to double back on the free agent market, dangling the bi-annual exception that wouldn’t require Toronto to duck under the apron again. The veteran minimum might even register with him, though at that price he’d probably have multiple suitors.
There is also a tiny chance the Raptors have just made a call as a means of potentially unloading money, routing a player to Utah for Diaw that works for salary-matching, only to then waive Diaw before his guarantee date. This would seem unlikely (it’d amount to just giving a player away to further insulate themselves from the tax), but it’s always a consideration with a non-guaranteed deal right before the drop date.
But whatever. Diaw is one of my favorite humans on the planet and the way he approaches the game of basketball is everything the Raptors have needed from a cultural standpoint. It’d be an easy enough sell.
