Boris Diaw reveals how he decided to retire / News - Basketnews.com

Boris Diaw reveals it's important to prepare yourself for retirement, adding that his love for travelling and discovering helped him a lot.

Credit: Imago Images – Scanpix Credit Imago Images – Scanpix

Former NBA player and champion Boris Diaw was a guest on The Benas Podcast, where he discussed various topics.

One of them was the retirement and how Diaw accepted and knew it was time to leave professional basketball for good.

"I tried to play as much as possible, but then I got traded to Utah," Diaw revealed on The Benas Podcast. "My last year was in Utah. I loved Utah, loved the place. I still got my house there. I decided to make it my home in the US. When I go back to the US, I go back to Utah."

I didn't know when I was going to stop. I played my last year, and the team had an option to keep or release me. I didn't get hurt my whole career, basically, but I got a small fracture on my leg, so I didn't play a good part of the season, and I just played in the playoffs.

Then, they [the Jazz] decided to go another direction. Go younger with the younger guys, and I could understand their position and why they did it. I was still hoping to come back to a team, so I went back to France and played for Paris for 6 months.

I was like, 'Okay, I never lived in Paris my adult life, it would be nice to be in Paris.' I almost returned to the NBA. There was a team thinking about it, but in the end, they didn't bring me in," Diaw continued.

Boris DiawCredit Noah Graham/Getty Images

The 41-year-old French also revealed that it's important to prepare for such a career step.

"I knew you had to prepare for retirement. The one scary thing for a professional athlete before retiring is not being prepared [for retirement] and getting bored. We got enough money to retire.

"For some people preparing for retirement is preparing enough money to leave. We have enough money to leave. But what are we going to do with our life? It could be tough," Diaw explained.

As Diaw revealed himself, one thing that helped him was his curiosity for different things.

"I'm naturally curious anyway. I always like to discover. I knew I wanted to travel, I knew I wanted to see different things. I was also scared to be bored. I was like, 'What if I'm home for 10 days and I'm looking at the wall, and what am I doing?'

I love to travel. I could do it nonstop, basically. So, I did prepare for that. I was like, 'Okay, I want to travel, I want to go to different places.' Scuba diving was another [activity] that I really loved.

And then I was like, going around the world, if you have time, you don't do it by plane. If you have time, you do it by boat. You go to all the best spots in the world by boat. I went to experience it and went on the sailing course, and I was doing diving trips. I was like, 'That's a perfect setup.'" Diaw said.

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