When Chris Bosh plays his very best basketball …
Thursday, January 21st, 2010… he is quite capable of resembling The Great Man, himself, in a sort of “poor man’s version” of Bill Russell.
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FYI … and, in response to these two pieces earlier today from Chris Black and Michael Grange, respectively:
More on Bosh [Jan 21, 2010, 3:00 PM]
You’ve got questions … I’ve got answers … [Jan 21, 2010, 8:14 AM]
these are the thoughts of yours truly concerning the Capacity for Excellence held by Christopher Wesson Bosh:
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Chris [Black],
Here’s what I wrote at “From Deep”, after reading Mr. Grange’s reference to your insight on what works best for Chris Bosh and the Raptors:
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Michael [Grange],
“But he does come up with some data that suggest that Bosh’s performance can be correlated pretty closely to team success. Most significantly it’s a phantom number (let’s face it, most of them are, but it’s fun) that I agree with in that it suggests the key for the Raptors success isn’t more scoring from Bosh.
The premise is that Bosh playing more like he did for the U.S. Olympic team – hustling, ball-hawking, defending in addition to score – could have an impact for the Raptors come playoff time.”
For the last several years, I have endured a fair amount of criticism for making the claim … long before others seemed to realize that Chris Bosh is, in fact, as good as he really is, as a dominant under-sized Center in the NBA … that CB4, when he plays his best and gives his TEAM its best chance to win important games against high end opponents, is actually playing the game like a poor man’s version of Bill Russell … i.e. which is to say that what he needs to do is, in fact:
* Score fewer points
* Shoot fewer shots
* Amass more rebounds
* Key the team’s offensive transition game as its main defensive rebounder/outlet pass maker
* Amass more assists
* Block more shots
* Play exclusively in the low-mid post area, as the Central hub of the team’s half-court offense
* Provide first-class leadership and emotional stability to his teammates who are sound, individually, as team defenders and secondary rebounders, but very good offensively moving without the ball and with the ability to make open shots.
If Chris Bosh has the right Point Guard on his team [i.e. pass first], and the right Off Guard [shoot first], and the right Small Forward [drive and defend first], and the right Power Forward [rebound and defend first], and the right Back-ups at the PG [defend], OG-SF [score] and PF-C [score] positions, and the right head coach [set based with expert leadership skills], he is plenty good enough to lead his team to a NBA championship.
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IMO, Chris [Bosh] actually has the capacity to ratchet-up his production in each of the Russell-based categories I listed above, if he decreases his current emphasis on Scoring.
What Chris [Bosh] has needed for a long time now is the kind of coach who can see accurately that is in fact where his emphasis NEEDS to be, if he is going to be able to achieve his personal goals as an elite level basketball player. Chris [Bosh] has always valued WINNING more than anything else. Unfortunately, he has yet to find the right coach to show him how to do this properly, given his specific skill-set.
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The beauty of it is that those same thoughts have in fact been on display on this very blog for the better part of the last 2 years.
Chris Bosh’s strength … as a player and a person
De-constructing the mystery that is Chris Bosh
Cheers
PS. It can be a real challenge if/when what you perceive to be the case is not immediately seen and shared by others.
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