It is quite clear the Bosh is not coming to Houston

LOL!!!

 

A couple of points:

- Just to clarify: The maximum length contract allowed by the current CBA is 6 years, so nobody is going to be signing a 7 year contract.

- I keep seeing references to the Rashard Lewis sign and trade and the fact that Seattle only got a 2nd round pick. That was an entirely different situation based on the ridiculous offer that Orlando made. Here's the Chad Ford description of the deal:

So what about Rashard Lewis? Why did the Magic give him $113 million?

Was there a team out there that would have matched such an offer? No, not even close.

Lewis is an offensive force, but max player might be stretching it.
His previous team, the Seattle SuperSonics, could have given him a similar amount, but their offer was for far less.

The other team with enough salary cap room to offer Lewis a similar contract, the Bobcats, didn't want to spend anything close to that on Lewis. Other teams, including the Rockets, were interested in a sign-and-trade deal, but as a number of teams learned in the past week, the Sonics didn't want to take back any long-term salaries as part of a sign-and-trade. That eliminated virtually everyone else.

Not only did the Magic offer Lewis far more than any other team was willing to pay, but they also added an unnecessary sixth year to the deal. Without a sign-and-trade deal between Seattle and Orlando, which the Magic didn't need to do, Lewis was eligible by NBA rules to sign with the Magic for only five years.

The sixth year is worth $22.7 million, if paid in full. While only $10 million of it is currently guaranteed, a league source revealed that the remainder will be guaranteed if certain performance incentives are met. According to this source, it boils down to this: If Lewis remains healthy, he'll get the money.

The Magic could have secured Lewis with a five-year, $60 million deal. Of course, Lewis' agent and the Magic won't admit that, but that's what the market tells us -- along with a number of GMs and agents.

So when the Magic broke the first rule and "bid against themselves," the price was an extra $53 million.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/columns/story?columnist=ford_chad&id=2934997

Lewis had an offer from Orlando that was over $50M higher than the next best offer. That took away all leverage from Seattle. Orlando knew that Seattle would have to give in an accept only a 2nd round pick. If Seattle refused then Lewis still would have outright signed with the Magic since a straight sign and trade was still about $25M more than any other offer. Orlando had no chance of losing Lewis and Seattle knew it. At that point Seattle had to take what they could get.

Bosh is in a different situation. Let's say he wants to go to Miami but he's got other teams on his list like Chicago and Houston. Miami can't completely lowball Toronto because there's a chance that Toronto could work out a trade with Chicago or Houston and Bosh might take that deal instead. Even if Miami was his first choice, does he like it $30M better than Chicago, Houston or NJ? The only way Miami gets the leverage to pull of a Rashard-like deal is if Bosh can convince Toronto that he's going to Miami no matter what and he's willing to leave $30M on the table.

If it were only a 2nd round pick at risk then I think Toronto calls his bluff.
Toronto will most likely end up doing a SnT, but they won't get completely low balled like Seattle.
It's a different case for Bosh.

 

Ric Bucher seems to disagree with the OP.