Year One A.B.: Chris Bosh's Departure

Christopher Wesson Bosh, drafted 4th overall in the 2003 NBA Draft, was supposed to be the big-man complement to Vincent Lamar Carter's outside scoring. The two would compile All-Star games together and form a fearsome two-man scoring tandem - both potent, do-it-all offensive players with a devastating arsenal of moves. As we all know, Vince decided Toronto wasn't for him and didn't deserve his effort, forcing a horribly lopsided trade to the New Jersey Nets, crippling the Raptors' hopes for a few seasons.

Along came Bryan Colangelo, and BC and CB, now a perennial All-Star, appeared to have the Raptors on the right track. BC drafted another versatile big man with seemingly unlimited potential first overall in Andrea Bargnani, and in his rookie season the Raps captured their first-ever Atlantic division crown. Unfortunately, that would be the peak of that Raptors team's success. Bosh continued to play at a very high level, even making the All-NBA Second Team in one season, but it became clearer and clearer that CB4 was not the "franchise player" the Raptors had hoped. Criticisms of mediocre defense, poor clutch performance and his good-not-great rebounding numbers abounded. The Raptors needed to pair him with another elite player to have any hope of competing in an increasingly competitive Eastern Conference. After failed pairings with mostly-washed-up versions of Jermaine O'Neal and Shawn Marion, the Raptors found themselves in the last year of Chris' contract extension, and he was not prepared to sign a contract extension in the summer of 2009.

Fast forward to April 2010. The Raptors, even with highly-touted (and equally maligned) signing of Hedo Turkoglu, floundered partly due to injuries and mostly due to general ineffectiveness from several key players, despite significant strides made by Andrea Bargnani and Bosh's fifth straight All-Star appearance. It became more and more obvious that the era of Chris Bosh as the face of the Raptors was coming to a close. Bosh announced on July 9 that he would be joining Dwyane Wade in Miami, and soon afterward, Bryan Colangelo announced that the team had completed a sign-and-trade, sending Chris Bosh to the Heat for two first-round draft picks: Toronto's own first-rounder in 2011 which had been traded as part of the Jermaine O'Neal deal, and Miami's first-rounder as well, to go along with a valuable $14 million traded player exception. And the Chris Bosh Era officially came to a close, perhaps the way Chris would have wanted it to: loyally and paying dues to the team that essentially gave him control of the franchise for these long years.

And now we rebuild.