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To save his legacy Chris Bosh must first protect his health
Miami Heat power forward Chris Bosh's blood clot issues leave his NBA career in jeopardy. Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images

To save his legacy Chris Bosh must first protect his health

Chris Bosh is one of those era-defining players who is consistently left out of the conversation about era-defining players. He’s a 6-foot-11 power forward with excellent footwork around the rim with the ability to extend his range out to 15 feet and beyond with ease. He’s won multiple championships; was a perennial All-Star; and is the all-time leader in points, rebounds and win shares for the Toronto Raptors. There wasn’t much on the floor Bosh couldn’t do, and when he didn’t need to do everything for his team on the floor, he gave up money and allowed his numbers to suffer for the betterment of his new team.

Bosh’s 2009-10 season was reminiscent of what Kevin Garnett did during his 2004 MVP campaign — 24 points, 11 rebounds and two assists per night with more efficient shooting numbers in front of and beyond the perimeter. While Bosh’s Raptors didn’t fare as well in the wins column as Garnett’s Timberwolves did (Toronto featured the NBA’s worst defense with an ungodly 113.2 defensive rating), he lifted that team above expectations in similar fashion on the offensive end, finishing with the fifth most efficient offense despite not making the postseason.

Most of Bosh’s youth was spent wallowing on underperforming Raptors teams, and now he’s spending the end of his prime wallowing in the depths of frustration as his body won’t allow him to compete — and it might not ever allow him to play another basketball game again. Two years ago, Bosh played through a series of ailments beginning with what felt like cramping in his left calf to rib pains to pains in his chest that made it difficult for him to breathe both on and off the court. After a brief vacation in Haiti, Bosh saw a doctor and was diagnosed with blood clots.

After learning about the news, Bosh’s wife Adrienne researched his condition, and the first thing she saw was the passing of Jerome Kersey, the former Trail Blazers forward who died the day before due to a blood clot that traveled from his calf to his lungs. The timing couldn’t be more poignant — the timing should have sent Bosh a message: Take care of yourself before taking care of business on the court.

Two years later, Bosh is still fighting for his right to play a game even if it means putting his life on the line. He missed the last three months of the 2015 NBA season recovering from the blood clot that forced him to go through multiple surgeries to save his life. Bosh told Sports Illustrated’s Lee Jenkins about the seriousness of the blood clot, saying, “[I might] not be able to play, not be able to live,” Bosh says. “It was that close. It was that serious.”

Having already gone through that, coming back to the NBA and having to leave the league again due to another blood clot, the whole NBA community seems much more concerned with his future health than he does. During the Miami Heat media day, Team President Pat Riley told reporters that he believes that Bosh’s career is over. As recently as two weeks ago, Bosh was optimistic that he’d be cleared to play by the start of training camp. Now with doctors not clearing him to play, he is calling the news a “small setback” instead of news that should change his outlook on a potential return to the game that he’s already given so much to.

Bosh, as a basketball player, has nothing left to prove. His résumé is already good enough to get him into the Hall of Fame, and after being an instrumental member of a team that played in four consecutive NBA Finals, winning two of them, he has nothing left to chase. He’s essentially done it all: 13 years of excellence, 11 of those years an All-Star, two of those years a champion. Bosh is so much bigger than the Miami Heat, bigger than basketball, bigger than just a few more seasons.

Athletes spend their whole lives working toward a goal that the end game is a part of their very being, and giving that up before they feel they’re ready has always been an issue. But for Bosh, the clock is done ticking on his career, and it’s time for him to move on as a husband and a father of five kids who need him more than he needs basketball.

It’s unfortunate that these are the circumstances in which Bosh is receiving league-wide attention when he’s been so good for so long. But now that he has the eyes, he can work toward setting an example for incoming generations of ballplayers who may have life-threatening conditions. His decision to let go can insert him into the conversations he’s been left out of way too often — and in ways that are much more impactful than basketball.

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