Bosh needs a reason to stay in Toronto

http://www.nationalpost.com/sports/story.html?id=2912141
Bosh needs a reason to stay in Toronto
Bruce Arthur, National Post

Maybe Chris Bosh wasn't as canny this season as we thought he was; perhaps his mastery of the season-long game of poker he played with the NBA had more to do with the fact that he couldn't see his cards. Maybe, as he puts it, "Nobody knows. Not even me."

But the five-time all-star has a reasonable idea of what he wants, and so soon we will find out what Chris Bosh is going to do as a free agent, and what the Toronto Raptors are going to do, and whether their seven-year marriage is coming to an end sometime after July 1.

And yesterday, after his team had missed the playoffs while he sat courtside with a fractured face, Bosh gave what may have been his valedictory news conference in Toronto. What will he do? He doesn't know. What does he want? He wants to win.

"Yeah, that's what it comes down at the end of the day," says Bosh, 26. "I just want to win basketball games. I want to play in the post-season. I want to advance. I've been playing seven years. It's time to start thinking about stuff like that for me, because I don't know how many years I have left.

"I have to start thinking like that. I know I'm still a young player, but I remember when I got drafted guys were 25, 26, and now they're on their last deals. I want to win basketball games."

It sounds a lot like the dance Roy Halladay was doing last season, and the parallels may not end there. They are similarly methodical thinkers, and they have won the same number of playoff series. And it seems likely that like Halladay, Bosh will have to change that someplace else.

And while he offered no certainties on Thursday, Bosh did lay out some general parameters.

Would he have to be a No. 1 option? Not necessarily. To re-sign here, would there need to be roster changes? "I think there has to be changes," he said, "only because we didn't make the playoffs. It's not like we're building off success."

How about an all-star-calibre perimeter player who can create, unlike the mediocre parade of Mike James, Morris Peterson, Jalen Rose, T.J. Ford, Jose Calderon, Anthony Parker, Jarrett Jack and DeMar DeRozan that has rolled through here over the past five years?

"You're going to have to have someone who can really create their own," Bosh said. "Like you said, be an all-star. When you look at every good team, that's what they have."

Well, what about an organization willing to spend into the NBA's punitive luxury tax, where every dollar spent costs you three?

"You have to," said Bosh. "That's something that I only really started thinking about this year. As I've gotten older, I've looked at other teams and their success and how they do their business. And you have to."

When asked if Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment would do so, he replied, quite reasonably, "I'm not sure. I'm not sure."

And of course, the big question. When Bosh signed this contract, general manager Bryan Colangelo essentially told him that Colangelo had built a good reputation in this league, and didn't intend to screw that up. This time, Colangelo would need to re-convince Bosh all over again. After two years out of the playoffs, does Bosh trust Colangelo to build a contender around him?

"I mean, that's the question that has to be answered this summer," Bosh said. "I think that's a big part of it ... if I still believe in him, yeah."

So big spending, roster alterations, an all-star running mate - it's hard to imagine what Colangelo could plausibly promise, or accomplish, to make Bosh believe this remains the place to be. As Bosh himself put it, "It's not going to happen in a year most of the time. Sometimes it does in unique situations. But most of the times it's not going to happen in one year or one month."

And that's the time frame we're dealing with, now. Which opens the door to a partnership in Miami with Dwyane Wade, or in Chicago with Derrick Rose, or in New York with some other member of the constellation-like free agent class of 2010.

Of course, we still don't know just how much the organization still believes in Bosh, who faded down the stretch. Some ascribed that dwindling to the ankle injury he suffered after the all-star break, which several sources believe was actually yet another injury to his knee. Others blamed the pernicious influence of outsiders who allegedly convinced Bosh to preserve his health at the expense of his hard-driving game, which Bosh denies.

"No, nothing went on," he said. "I twisted my ankle when I got back. I had a decent season. I struggled after an injury. That's plain and simple."

In some corners of the organization, meanwhile, there are not only worries about a New York-based girlfriend, but about Bosh himself.

"Let's say we do sign Chris," said one team source. "But is Chris going to be the same guy? Or are we going to get the Chris that's shooting 18-foot jump shots?"

Either way, Bosh will get paid max money here or elsewhere, providing a sign-and-trade can be worked out; he says that regardless of how negotiations go with Toronto, "no matter what happens, me and Bryan agreed to work together."

Nobody knows, no, but the betting here is a divorce. An amicable divorce, sure, but a divorce all the same. Maybe it's poetic that in his last game as the face of the franchise, that face was fractured. After all, it feels like a breakup is on the way.