After a year of uncertainty with the Miami Heat, center Chris Bosh can now find a new home for 2017-18. Here are five teams that could be interested in him.
2016-17 was a frustrating season for future Basketball Hall of Famer Chris Bosh. After succumbing to scary blood clots for the second straight season, the Miami Heat’s medical staff refused to clear him. Bosh did not play a second for the Heat, and Miami missed the Eastern Conference Playoffs for the second time in three seasons.
According to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, “Chris Bosh has told family members that an agreement has been struck among the NBA, the Heat, the union and himself for Bosh to part ways with the Heat at some point in the coming weeks, with the Heat receiving maximum cap relief.”
Miami expected to be a big spender in 2017 NBA free agency anyway. Now it seems that Bosh will be looking to join the third NBA team of his Hall of Fame worthy career. Should he check out medically, here are five playoff-caliber teams that could have interest in signing Bosh as a free agent this summer.
The Los Angeles Clippers have to do something different this offseason. As much as owner Steve Ballmer and head coach/president of basketball operations Doc Rivers would love to bring the same team back next year, Los Angeles has scraped its finite ceiling as a 50-win Western Conference Semifinalist team.
Three of their four best players in point guard Chris Paul, power forward Blake Griffin and shooting guard J.J. Redick will all be hitting unrestricted free agency this summer. Conceivably, Los Angeles could go way over the salary cap to keep its core intact.
However, Redick will certainly command more money on the open market than Los Angeles will be willing to pay him. Add in that Griffin and Paul are in essence mutually exclusive basketball superstar entities, and next year’s club could look entirely different.
Bosh could make some sense with the Clippers, as he would stretch the floor with his smooth stroke from distance. He is a committed rebounder and could provide more defensive bang for the buck in the frontcourt than Griffin, assuming he has his health.
Rivers loves to sign players that were really good back in 2010. Bosh fits that mold, as he was the star player with the Toronto Raptors during that NBA season. Floor spacing would be better with Bosh on the floor. He’d bring a standard of excellence to the Clippers locker room that still doesn’t understand how to win at the highest of levels. That being said, this feels like a landing spot that would be more advantageous for the Clippers than it would be for Bosh.
The Cleveland Cavaliers will be an NBA Finals contender for as long as LeBron James stays in his prime. Don’t expect James or Cavaliers star point guard Kyrie Irving to be going anywhere anytime soon. However, the Cavaliers could be seeing a major shakeup to their antiquated bench regardless of how their 2017 NBA Playoffs run ends.
Power forward Kevin Love hasn’t looked this good arguably ever. He’s playing with as much confidence as he once showcased while he was the star player for the Minnesota Timberwolves. However, he will inevitably be the scapegoat if Cleveland doesn’t win the 2017 NBA Finals, regardless of how unfair that is.
While parting ways with Love while his is still very much in his prime would be foolish, Cleveland could look to add another stretch big to back him up. The Channing Frye experiment has run its course. Outside of center Tristan Thompson getting all the rebounds and put-backs he wants down low, Cleveland is especially thin in the frontcourt.
Bosh would be able to be a high-end rotation player for the 2017-18 Cavaliers. He’d know exactly the type of play he’d need to provide to help James contend for championships. His combination of jump shooting and rebounding acumen could make the Cavaliers even more of a juggernaut offensively if he and Love can feed off each other.
Then again, James did leave Bosh in Miami for Cleveland and hand-selected Love to replace Bosh’s role with the Cavaliers. It wouldn’t be shocking to think that free agency move didn’t have an impact on Bosh and James’ relationship. However, Cleveland would be the team Bosh would want to sign with if he wants to win another championship. Cleveland has LeBron and that’s all that matters.
The Boston Celtics are a good, but not a great team. Honestly, the Celtics organization would be the first group of people to tell you that. However, we should expect a handful of moves to better help them contend for an NBA Championship in 2018.
Boston has the No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft. The Celtics could use that pick any number of players including Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, or Josh Jackson. We should also expect Boston to be actively pursuing players like Gordon Hayward in the free agency market. That being said, they could use some help down low.
Boston is atrocious at rebounding. When you spend top dollar on finesse stretch-five like Al Horford, this is what you inevitably sign up for. So how would adding Bosh help Boston in this regard? While he and Horford would be a bit of a redundancy in the frontcourt, Boston needs at least one other reliable big man to pair with Horford down low.
Maybe Horford would prefer to play the four like he did in college at Florida next to Joakim Noah. Bosh isn’t the muscle at the five that Noah was in his prime, but he can offer a great deal of variety to playing center. In an increasingly position-less NBA, it’s just guards and bigs really. If DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis can play alongside each other in New Orleans, why can’t Bosh and Horford coexist?
The only real issue besides health that could be a concern for the Celtics signing Bosh is that they have some tough decisions to make in free agency. Do they go hard after Hayward to pry him away from the Jazz? Does Boston want to max out point guard Isaiah Thomas? How can they afford to keep Avery Bradley around long term? Bosh would have to take a discount to play for the Celtics, hence the reason this is a good, but not preferred landing spot for him.
Why would Chris Bosh consider going to the Memphis Grizzlies? Though he’s not exactly Grit ‘N Grind material, he does have a strong working relationship with Grizzlies head coach David Fizdale. Before taking that for data and the Memphis gig, Fizdale was Erik Spoelstra’s top assistant with the Miami Heat.
In all honesty, Bosh’s beef with the Heat probably has more to do with team president Pat Riley than with Spoelstra. If Miami isn’t happening any more for Bosh, Memphis is probably an easy fit for him.
Memphis already has two star players locked up in their prime in point guard Mike Conley and center Marc Gasol. Chandler Parsons is making a ton of coin out on the wing. If he’s healthy, Memphis is a more compelling team in the Western Conference. The problem is that Tony Allen, Vince Carter, JaMychal Green and Zach Randolph are all free agents. Memphis won’t be able to keep all four of those high-end role players.
This is where Bosh comes in. He’d be able to play alongside Gasol down low, helping space the floor more than Randolph ever could. Fizdale came to Memphis to bring a 3-and-D movement to the Grindhouse. Bosh would know exactly what Fizdale would want him to do on both ends of the floor from their time working together in Miami.
Because Bosh has had his health issues, Memphis probably wouldn’t have to break the bank to sign him. The Grizzlies would be getting another versatile player in their frontcourt that could open things up for Gasol and Parsons to go off. By further spreading the floor, it would make for easier buckets at the rim for Conley. Maybe Bosh’s on-court presence helps Conley reach his first NBA All-Star Game? He is the highest paid player in the sport…for now.
It’s not like Bosh has never played with a primary ball-handler before that loves to dribble the air out of the basketball. Sure, LeBron James was an adept distributor, but Dwyane Wade and Goran Dragic are more score-first guards than anything. So yes, Bosh could sit pretty in the corner for an open 3-pointer while Russell Westbrook thinks occasionally about passing him the ball.
Bosh to the Oklahoma City Thunder makes a good bit of sense. While they do have the ever-popular ‘Stache Brothers in Steven Adams and Enes Kanter, neither of whom really have a prominent game extending beyond the mid-range.
Opening the floor for Westbrook with clutch jump-shooting like Bosh can offer makes the predictable Thunder offense all the more compelling. While the Thunder will look to see what small forward Doug McDermott can do out on the wing in 2017-18 as a spot-up shooter, it is unlikely that the other former Chicago Bull they traded for in Taj Gibson will re-sign with Oklahoma City.
Given that the power forward market is not particularly top-heavy this free agency cycle, guys like Gibson, Serge Ibaka and Paul Millsap are about to make a great deal of coin on the open market. Taj Gibson was a nice addition but Bosh, if healthy could provide much more.
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Bosh would be a veteran leader that Thunder head coach Billy Donovan can count on keeping the locker room in check. Since he starred on the Heat, Bosh knows a thing or two about winning an NBA Championship. One of those championships came against Westbrook’s Thunder back in 2012. Oklahoma City hasn’t been to the NBA Finals sense. Maybe Westbrook can learn a thing or two form Bosh on how to be a champion?