Former NBA champion Boris Diaw, out of retirement and aged 42, qualified on Sunday with his amateur club Biscarrosse (11th division) for the final of the Coupe des Landes, a local event which unleashes passions .
Sometimes nicknamed “Landes World Cup”, this amateur basketball competition will crown its winner on June 1 in Mont-de-Marsan, where Biscarrosse (Departmental 3) will challenge ESMS (National 2, 4th division). Diaw, ex-captain of the France team, had retired since 2018. But the 2013 European champion and 2014 NBA champion returned to the courts this season with a group of friends at the end of their careers or retirees, including several former professionals.
To reach the final, Diaw and his gang tamed Élan Tursan (Regional 1, 6th division) on Sunday with a score of 99-77 in the arenas of Gamarde-les-Bains. Biscarrosse was well helped by a regulation point giving it a 35-point lead at the start of this semi-final due to the division gap with its opponent. In the final, Diaw’s team will have a 49-point lead against Élan Souémontain Montgaillardais Sarraziétois (ESMS), the club of former Pau and Paris-Levallois leader Rémi Lesca (33).
Created in 1946, the Coupe des Landes fuels historic village rivalries during men’s and women’s matches often played in front of very large audiences. Diaw himself described the ordeal as “the Holy Grail for a Landais”. The final is expected to attract 8,000 people to the Mont-de-Marsan arenas, twice as many as the average number of spectators for French championship matches.
