A Personal View: Chris Bosh's Career

Chris Bosh was my first "favourite player" in the NBA. He was drafted by the Raptors the same season I began playing basketball with any real purpose when I - nothing short of miraculously - made my middle school's team in grade 8, and realized I knew absolutely nothing about the game of basketball. My "homework" was to watch Chris Bosh - another lanky, raw rookie. People always said he "played the game the right way" - he hustled, never backed down from a challenge, and muscled (mostly bone, in his case) up against much bigger players. He played a significant portion of his rookie reason with two knee braces, and managed to appear in over 70 games. I guess you could say he was my favourite player only by default, but of course I had no knowledge of any other players beyond Vince Carter in Toronto.

He worked hard on his game - he came back the next year with a much-improved game in all aspects - after Carter's departure, he posted elite NBA forward numbers: 19 points, 10 rebounds per game. I took a page from his playbook and worked on my game whenever possible, taking the opportunity to play for the "Grade 9 Team:" a barely-existent team with a coach who only showed up half the time, and a season that lasted three whole games. But continuing to follow in his footsteps, I stepped on the court the next season for tryouts, confident in my chances of making the team: even more so when it was announced that in order to give enough playing time to all the interested players, there would be an "A" team and a "B" team - though the B starters would be better than the A benchwarmers (so they said, anyway). I made the B team and started every game, as Bosh made his first All-Star game, my team made its way to the division finals (getting smoked, but that's beside the point). The next year Chris made the All-NBA Second Team, I made the Varsity team, eventually winning Most Improved Player. And then, just as Chris did, I became jaded. I played my ass off for sure, as he did, but basketball was just something to do - not the only thing to do.

So maybe I can see where Chris is coming from. He paid his dues here for years. Perhaps he just wants to play with "his friends," to inject passion back into his game.

Or maybe I just fell in love with basketball independent of Chris Bosh. Either way, I know I won't be booing you when you come back to the ACC.