From NBA Star ➞ Sudden Retirement: The Chris Bosh Story

Andy Hoops

Chris Bosh was an 11x all-star and one of the most versatile big men we've ever seen. In the middle of his prime, he joined the Miami Heat big 3 and sacrified his individual stats with the goal of winning championships. In this video, I talk about his entire career and what caused his downfall. Enjoy!  I make all kinds of NBA videos which include trivia, analysis, player stories, countdowns, conspiracies, and mysteries. Make sure to leave a like and subscribe if you enjoyed this video!  ► Instagram: @Andy93y ► Twitter: @AndyHoopsYT  ► Music:  On The Cool Side by Kevin MacLeod Basic Implosion by Kevin MacLeod  Available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Find all of his songs and download them for free here: http://incompetech.com  ► Sources: Stats and box-scores from Basketball-Reference.com http://www.espn.com/nba/playoffs/2011/news/story?id=6612403  #nba #nbastory #chrisbosh

Transcript

00:04Chris Bosh was a unique player with a very interesting career.

00:09For most NBA fans, when we think about Bosh, the first thing that comes to mind is the Miami

00:14Heat's Big 3. More specifically, we think about him as the third option on that team.

00:20Someone who barely ever gets credit for the team's success, yet usually gets blamed for

00:25the team's losses if he doesn't play well. Pretty much the same thing happened to Kevin

00:29Love. That's part of the package when you play on a team with LeBron. Unfortunately for

00:35Bosh, his career all of a sudden came to an end, and not by his own decision either.

00:40How's it going fellas, my name's Andy, and today we're gonna take a look at the career

00:44of Chris Bosh, his younger days in Toronto, his later days in Miami, and his downfall.

00:51Chris Bosh came into the NBA as part of the legendary 2003 draft class. He was the fourth

00:58overall pick drafted right behind Carmelo Anthony and right ahead of Dwayne Wade. At the time,

01:04the Toronto Raptors were in an awkward situation. Vince Carter was still on the team, but he

01:09was getting impatient at the lack of supporting cast. The team previously missed the playoffs

01:15and Carter's growing tension with the Raptors' management was getting hard to ignore.

01:19It started to become a real problem, and it reflected on his play on the court,

01:23as his last few seasons were very underwhelming. The team, in general, was getting kinda old too,

01:30with a lot of guys over 30. As for Bosh, at just 19 years old, he quickly became the team's

01:36starting power forward. He showed a lot of promise early on. In his first couple years,

01:41he made major improvements in his game, and by his third season, he was already leading his team

01:45in scoring and made his first all-star team. At just 21 years old, he was averaging over 22 points

01:51and 9 rebounds a game. But what separated him from other bigs was that he was a very versatile big

01:57man, which was very rare at the time. He could post up a little bit, he could pass out of

02:02the block,

02:03he could face up and take you off the dribble, he had a clean mid-range jump shot, and he

02:07was a great

02:08free throw shooter, hovering around 80% for his career. Unfortunately, even though Bosh became a

02:15perennial all-star and continued to carry his team, he never had a good supporting cast in his entire

02:20time in Toronto. His second best teammate was either Mike James, who averaged over 20 points a game in

02:26one season, but he only played in one season for Toronto. Or Jose Calderon, who, by the way, was really

02:32underrated back in the day. He was a very efficient scorer, a great three-point shooter, and a

02:37phenomenal passer, even leading the league in assist-to-turnover ratio in 2008. There was also

02:43Andrea Bargnani, former number one pick, and he became the second leading scorer behind Bosh, which

02:48isn't exactly a good thing. As a result, the Toronto Raptors never got past the first round during the

02:55Chris Bosh era. In fact, in seven seasons, they only won a total of three playoff games, and only made

03:01the

03:01playoffs twice. The highest number of regular season wins they ever got was 47, and considering

03:08the Eastern Conference was really weak at this time, that's kinda low. That doesn't sound good, but if

03:13you go through all the rosters, you'll understand why. Outside of Bosh, it was ridiculous how weak the

03:20rest of the rosters were. There were a couple reasons for that, but part of it had to do with

03:25players not

03:25wanting to play in Toronto. Nowadays, most players have warmed up to Toronto and enjoy playing there and

03:31wanting to play there, but back then, it wasn't the case. They had to build their team solely through the

03:37draft, which is risky because if the draft picks don't pan out, then their team will never be good.

03:43During this era, their biggest trade was the Vince Carter trade. You'd expect them to get a great return

03:49for Carter, since he was one of the best players in the league. But because Carter tanked his value by

03:54not

03:54trying at all, the Raptors didn't get much back and they had no leverage. They got back a couple of

04:00role

04:00players, including an older Alonzo Mourning who didn't even report to the team. Later on, they made a trade

04:06for Jermaine O'Neal who was also a perennial all-star, just like Bosh, but he was getting older and

04:12the

04:12Bosh plus O'Neal experiment was not working. Then they traded O'Neal for Sean Marion who left after half

04:18a season.

04:19Basically, Bosh never had any help. I guess some of the blame could go to Brian Colangelo,

04:25the president and GM, but at the same time, it was a difficult situation to navigate.

04:30Although Toronto is a huge city and it's technically a huge market for basketball,

04:35but other players did not look at it that way. Raptors games were barely ever broadcasted on

04:40national television in the US, so barely anyone got to see them play. Other players and fans in

04:46general did not know much about the team. That's why they never saw any major free agent signing

04:51there. Of course, as the years went by, the perception of Toronto would change.

04:56Anyway, by the summer of 2010, Bosh would leave and join the Miami Heat. We all know how this deal

05:02went down. And right when he made his decision, he knew he had to make a sacrifice. His numbers dropped

05:09across the board as he averaged his lowest number of points, rebounds and assists in the last five years.

05:15He also started taking about 35% of his shots between 16 feet and the three-point line,

05:21which is basically mid-range distance. That was more than in any other season of his career.

05:26Bosh became a stretch four. Not only did he sacrifice his stats, but everybody looked at him

05:31differently. People started to make fun of him and he became the butt of many jokes.

05:36During his first season in Miami, he saw guys like Stan Van Gundy call him a lapdog.

05:42Scotty Pippen called the Heat Big Three, two and a half men. Bosh knew about all these things being

05:48said. He responded by saying, it is what it is. If somebody feels like they have to pick on somebody,

05:54pick on the quiet guy. If you want to win, sometimes you have to sacrifice things. I know

05:59everybody says they'll sacrifice whatever they can to have a chance to win, but until that really

06:04happens, you'll never know the emotions you have to go through in order to get it.

06:08It was clear that Bosh just wanted to win. Unlike LeBron and D-Wade who'd made it deep into the

06:14playoffs before, Bosh never did. He never knew what it felt like to win and be one of the best

06:19teams in the league. There were times when he would go up to the podium and do his post-game

06:24press conferences, but nobody would have any questions for him.

06:36Chris, how did you pinch your neck this morning? Huh? How did you pinch your neck this morning?

06:41I woke up. You woke up with a crick in your neck? Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

06:48Okay. They already asked LeBron and D-Wade all the questions they had. Things like this would

07:06happen frequently to Bosh. LeBron and Wade were a lot closer, and it was more of a big two,

07:12plus one. However, from like 2012 to 2014, Bosh would be more important than Wade. In my opinion,

07:20he became the second best player on the team while Wade started to slow down.

07:24Defensively, Bosh was a huge reason why Miami's aggressive blitzing of the pick and roll worked.

07:30He was quick enough to cover guards for a couple seconds, and he was long enough to recover and

07:34contest the paint. Without Bosh, there's no way that he would have won those championships.

07:40Most NBA fans did not see the impact he had, but the Heat organization did.

07:45After LeBron left Miami, they made it known that Bosh would be their new franchise cornerstone.

07:50On July 30th, 2014, Bosh officially re-signed with the Miami Heat to a max contract of 5 years,

07:57118 million. That was way more than what Dwayne Wade got, which was only 2 years, 31 million.

08:04In the post-LeBron era, Wade and Bosh became the focal points, but unfortunately they were no longer

08:09legit contenders. Even more unfortunate, in February of 2015, Bosh discovered that he had a blood clot in

08:16his lungs, forcing him to miss the rest of the season. The blood clot issues would re-occur once

08:22again in the following season. This issue would not go away, and despite Bosh's plea to get back

08:28onto the court and play, it was way too risky. He started to take blood thinners as well, which

08:34was dangerous while participating in a physical activity. If a person is on blood thinners, a couple

08:39of bumps and bruises could lead them to bleeding out of control. Even if he felt healthy and wanted

08:44to play again, he couldn't because he couldn't pass the physical. By the beginning of the 2016-17

08:51season, Bosh kept insisting that he could play, but the risk was too high. Nobody wants to see a

08:56player die on the court. Before the 2017-18 season, Bosh and the Heat organization came to

09:03a mutual agreement. Bosh would retire, and because his blood clots were considered as a career-ending

09:08illness, the NBA ruled that his massive contract would no longer count against their salary cap.

09:14However, Bosh still hasn't given up and he still loves the game. Even recently, he said a couple times

09:20that he wanted to make a comeback and return to the NBA. But I don't see this happening. This was

09:25basically it. That was the end of Bosh's NBA career, and it was a very, very sad ending.

09:31He couldn't even retire on his own terms, and he was still very productive until his very last game.

09:38And that sums up the career of Chris Bosh. He was an 11-time All-Star and a two-time

09:43champion.

09:44He only made one All-NBA team in his entire career, which is actually kind of weird. You'd expect an

09:5011-time All-Star to have more All-NBA selections, but that wasn't the case. There was a lot of

09:55competition at his position, so it makes sense. He never made any All-Defensive teams either,

10:01but I think in his last few seasons in Miami, he definitely played like an All-NBA defender.

10:07Bosh really changed the game too. He was one of the first big men who could do everything.

10:11Score, rebound, pass, defend, shoot, switch onto guards. He had no weaknesses in his game.

10:18Imagine if he was in his prime right now. His playstyle would be a perfect fit for the modern

10:23NBA. He's without question a Hall of Famer. Anyway, that's all folks. Thank you everyone

10:28so much for watching. What are your thoughts on Chris Bosh? Let me know in the comments. I hope

10:32you enjoyed the video, and as always, I'll see you next time. Peace.

10:41Peace.

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