Even When Bosh Wins, He Loses

Wednesday night's game was supposed to be Chris Bosh's coming out party. Everything was set up perfectly. Bosh has been criticized all season for his pedestrian-like 14 points and 6 rebounds a game. He found himself matched up with the likes of Channing Frye, Hakim Warrick, and Earl Clark - three soft defenders, and a Heat team that was willing to defer to him, fully aware that Bosh needed a big game, and this was a match up he could exploit.
Bosh delivered with a 35 point performance. While most of his points were jumpers and drives to the basket, he still put together his first dominant offensive performance of the year. The six rebounds thing? I think it's just time to accept Bosh isn't a double-double guy anymore, at least not on this team. Wade and LeBron take away a lot of rebounds and Bosh doesn't look too interested in grabbing them.
While the nationally televised audience's attention should have been focused on Bosh's game, and it was to an extent, Bosh's post-game comments stole the show and took on a life of their own.
In the interview Bosh said, "[Heat coach Erik Spoelstra] knows he has to meet us halfway. He wants to work, we wanna chill, but we're going to have to work to get everything down, to get our timing down, and to get our chemistry down."



All I heard was, "He wants to work, we wanna chill..." Apparently I wasn't alone, Jeff Van Gundy and Stuart Scott both made a big deal about the comment later on in the broadcast.
I'm not one of those people that think athletes should be in the gym 20 hours day. They're human beings, they deserve down time just like anyone else. The fans just don't want to hear about the down time, especially when contrasted so bluntly with hard work. Athletes get paid a lot, and when a player making the max level 14.5 million dollars this year expresses his willingness to chill, it won't go over too well.
Bosh deserves the benefit of the doubt here. I'm sure his thoughts on team chemistry and how he was fitting in to the offense came out wrong. With that being said, his comments were harmful for two reasons:
1) They weren't taken out of context, that was the full quote. Context is an athlete's "Get Out of Jail Free Card." Whenever they say something misguided, they blame the journalist: it was taken out of context. LeBron James used that very same excuse recently when he said his, "I'm playing too many minutes, 44 minutes is too much," quote was taken out of context. Bosh doesn't have that luxury. The interview was on national TV, it wasn't taken out of context. It might have come out wrong, but he still said what he said.
2) When he said we want to chill, he put words, and not so flattering words, into his teammate's mouths. They should be able to speak for themselves. Now one man's perceived laziness has the potential to become the aura surrounding the team's culture.
The Heat asked for these Presidential levels of scrutiny. I think they underestimated how bad it would get, but now have to deal with it, Bosh especially. He's like the youngest of the three brothers. What is anyone going to say to LeBron or Wade? They take over games. They've led previous teams to playoff success. We pick on the little brother because it's easy. He can't fight back so he has to call on his older brothers to come and beat us up. That's when we'll run and hide.
A halftime and a post-game interview was probably a dream come true for Bosh. He's made no secret about the fact he wants to be seen. He spent the entire offseason looking for attention. His performance, or lack thereof, on the court will get enough attention. He needs to be more careful about what he says because right now, he's only adding fuel to the fire. Apparently small market Toronto didn't prepare him for this.