Rankings the best NBA nicknames of all time

19. The Borista

This one doesn’t even show up on the player’s basketball-reference.com page, which is astounding given how generous the site’s nickname allowances tend to be, but I promise this is not a concoction of my own brain: after Spurs beat writer Jeff McDonald revealed that Boris Diaw kept an espresso machine in his locker with the San Antonio Spurs, LaMarcus Aldridge attempted to dub Diaw “Tea Time,” which, while indicative of his style of play, was not accurate to the beverage Aldridge loves the most.

Though he gained notoriety for his love affair with wine, it was the coffee that fit so closely with his persona. He even turned some teammates on to the potentially volatile combination of coffee and basketball.

It seemed to work for the French journeyman, who was a key contributor off the bench for the 2014 NBA Championship version of the San Antonio Spurs (the next player in this list has never been a Spur, I promise) a full eight years after winning the NBA’s Most Improved Player award with the Seven Seconds or Less Phoenix Suns.

Diaw spent parts of four troubling seasons as a Charlotte Bobcat before finding his place in San Antonio and then, last season, continuing to lend flavor as a member of the Utah Jazz. Though Diaw is back in France, hopefully clowning EuroCup opponents as a forward for Levallois Metropolitans, we all hope we have yet to see the last of the Borista in the NBA, if only because there may be some players who could use a halftime shot of espresso to get their games going. Paging Kyle “Slow Mo” Anderson.