Bosh too big for Toronto

Chris Bosh's headlines continues

After a close loss to the New York Knicks in the Raptors’ season opener on Wednesday, it was apparent Toronto missed the presence of its former star forward Chris Bosh.

The five-time all-star didn’t share the same sentiment towards his former team, though.

Since joining the Miami Heat, the Dallas native has been under the scrutiny of playing for a front-runner in the Eastern Conference – something the 26-year-old felt was missing while playing north of the border.

“I mean, really it’s all about being on TV at the end of the day,” Bosh said following the pre-game shoot- around in Philadelphia to reporters on Wednesday. “Seriously, a guy can average 20 [points] and 10 [rebounds] and nobody cares.

“If you look around, there are more cameras than I’ve seen in a month, maybe two months probably in a season combined.

“It’s a little different.”

What the six-foot-11 forward failed to realize was an entire city, if not a country, mindful of all of his exploits.

His comments make it hard for fans to defend their former star when reports suggested that he possibly quit on the team at the end of last season. Leading the criticism was Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo, who claimed that Bosh had ‘quit’ down the stretch.

“Everybody is entitled to their opinion,” Bosh said. “I know the truth, my family knows the truth and my teammates know the truth.

“It’s unfortunate that he said some stuff like that. We tried our best to make that organization a good team.”

On opening night, the Raptors got a good look at what life without Bosh will be like.

In the early going against the Knicks it appeared that Andrea Bargnani was ready to fill the void left by the former Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket. But in the closing moments of a tight ball game it became apparent the Raptors lacked a go-to-guy — a role formerly designated for Bosh.

“We’re going to find all year long it’s going to be a team thing where we have to make sure that we manage everybody’s touches, ride the hot hand when we can and accept the fact that some nights it’s going to be one guy and another night it’s going to be someone else,” head coach Jay Triano said to thestar.com.

“It’s going to mean a huge repertoire of plays that we’re going to need to have for each guy, not just one or two like we had.”

About this article

By: Umar Ali
Posted: Oct 28 2010 8:23 pm
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Filed under: Basketball Sports
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