Ric Bucher wrote the following in the ESPN rumors section:
…since Raptors PF/C Chris Bosh made it clear over All-Star weekend that he’s not interested in leaving Toronto to be the second banana elsewhere.
Here’s what Bosh actually said, courtesy of the Toronto Sun.
“I was just looking at what people say and it’s like: ‘Chris is going to go here and play with him or this, this and that.’ I’m like: Wait a minute. I feel like I should be built around. And maybe that’s just my ego talking, but I feel that I’m a very good player in this league and I’m only going to get better. So … maybe we should be getting somebody (in Toronto).”
From the what-did-he-mean-by-that portion of the program came this little tidbit from Bosh: “Things you like and dislike change daily,” Bosh said, “(which makes it) impossible almost to not only predict the future, but predict your feelings.”
How do you leave this exchange thinking that Bosh “made it clear that he’s not interested in leaving Toronto to be the second banana elsewhere”? To me, it sounds like a guy who is angry at the media for assuming that he’s leaving Toronto this summer. He suggests that the team should be “getting somebody” in Toronto, but the Raptors aren’t going to have any cap space for the next couple of summers — they did their “getting” last summer when they signed Hedo Turkoglu.
So if the Raptors finish the season with 44 or 45 wins and bow out in the first round of the playoffs, does anyone really think that Bosh isn’t going to think long and hard about playing elsewhere? Being “built around” is fine, but as history has shown, it takes two superstars to win a NBA championship, and the Raptors only have one.
Bucher is taking Bosh’s words as gospel — that he’s not leaving Toronto to play with LeBron or Wade elsewhere — but in the very same interview Bosh admits what he likes or doesn’t like changes daily, and says it’s impossible to predict the future. I have no problem if Raptor fans find comfort in Bosh’s words, but Bucher is making that extra leap by saying that Bosh has ruled out playing somewhere else, and that’s simply not what the man said.
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