Envision yourself in following situation: You are the best player on your NBA team and the face of the franchise, having a career season while proclaiming yourself the leader of your squad.
Meanwhile, your team is in a dogfight for the final playoff spot in your conference, with each game carrying plenty of weight and the season on the line. Clearly, this race wil come down to the final days of the schedule, including a huge matchup with the team you are battling for the last playoff spot.
But, here's the problem: You are injured. More specifically, you broke bones in your face after a vicious elbow late in the season.
Luckily, there was great news!! Medical staff cleared you to play with just six games remaining and the swelling had gone down almost all the way. At this point, it was all up to your pain tolerance, with no serious risk of future injury. It was the perfect chance to step up and put your toughness on display, not to mention your leadership and basketball skills.
Welcome to Chris Bosh's world at the end of the 2009/2010 NBA season. Yes, he was cleared to play, but no, he didn't.
From Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun:
Raptors president/general manager Bryan Colangelo chose his words carefully during a Monday interview with the FAN 590’s Bob McCown, but clearly is not pleased with the way things turned out with Bosh.
Colangelo intoned that Bosh took a long time to return from injury even though he had been medically cleared and that he started thinking ahead to his future to the detriment of the Raptors.
“Despite limited swelling and any excessive damage on an MRI, he felt like he needed to sit for six more games ... I’m not even questioning Chris’ injury. I’m telling you he was cleared to play subject to tolerance on his part, and the tolerance just apparently wasn’t there and he chose not to play,” Colangelo said.
“The fact that our season was spiralling downward and we were hoping he’d come back sooner and we were also dealing with a few other things at that point ... we were really struggling there.”
Colangelo went on to elaborate:
“Whether he was mentally checked out or just wasn’t quite into it down the stretch, he wasn’t the same guy. I think everybody saw that, but no one wanted to acknowledge it.”
“At the same time, I never felt we were quite in the game (in terms of signing Bosh to a new contract). There was too much out there, too much built up for him to take an easy out here, and he decided to do that.”
Colangelo also said Bosh was hard to build around.
“We tried in vain to put pieces around Chris. Different pieces, different styles. It didn’t work out.”
“No matter what type of player we brought in, it didn’t seem to have the right mix with him as that centrepiece.”
No matter how Bosh tries to spin things, it’s clear he, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James thought seriously about playing together long ago and they likely finalized those plans at the all-star break.
He was not going to be a Raptor next season, so his thinking clearly was why continue to run through walls for the team and put his $100 million-plus South Beach payday at risk?"
Wolstat sums things up pretty well - why would Bosh work hard for a team he had no intention of staying with? Well, for starters, it would show us how Bosh is wired and prove that yes, he is a competitor regardless of the stakes.
Instead, the man known in Toronto as CB4 quit on his team, his fans and his fellow players. Sure, LeBron James mysteriously regressed during the Cavaliers-Celtics series, but he still managed a triple-double in the final game, along with a pair of 60-win seasons in Cleveland.
Bosh, on the other hand, accomplished next to nothing in Toronto. Sure, he piled up statistics and made himself a pile of money in the offseason, but he won nothing and showed me he's not the kind of player with a burning desire to win at any cost.
I have no problem with Colangelo telling it how it is. In some ways, it's an excuse for his poor job as general manager, but still, there are facts... here are 3:
1. Chris Bosh was medically cleared to play
2. The Toronto Raptors were fighting for a playoff spot and desperately needed their franchise player.
3. Chris Bosh chose not to play, watching his team miss the playoffs by one game.
To me, that sums it up: Chris Bosh is a quitter. And hey, at least Colangelo didn't go into Dan Gilbert mode and guarantee a championship in Toronto.
What do you think? Did Bosh make the right decision for himself as a person, or do you agree with me and think he showed his true colors (and they weren't pretty)? Drop some knowledge in the comments and share your thoughts.
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