Chris Bosh has been eager to get back on the court, but unfortunately, it appears that his career with the Miami Heat is over.
Bosh has been sidelined for the second half of each of the past two seasons due to blood clots. Though he was working hard to return, he recently failed the Heat’s preseason physical. Today during media day, Heat President Pat Riley says they are no longer working towards his return.
“We are not,” Riley said. “I think Chris is still open-minded. But we are not working toward his return. We feel that, based on the last exam, that his Heat career is probably over.”
Asked if he felt Bosh’s NBA career was over, as well, Riley said, “that’s up to him.”
“It’s pretty definitive from us, in our standpoint, that this is probably going to be a time where we really have to step back,” Riley said. “His health, playing, and economics — it’s been health, health, health,” Riley said. “Whatever the cap ramifications are, they are there, but we never ever thought about that.”
Bosh signed a five-year, $118 million max contract with the Heat in 2014. They would receive salary-cap relief going forward on Feb. 9 if Bosh is ruled medically unable to play by an NBA specialist. Riley denied there was ever an adversarial approach in bringing Bosh back.
“If there was a level of mistrust, I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Riley said. “Contrary to how this thing has been perpetuated in the media, we have worked very, very hard with Chris. I don’t know where that came from. We were there the whole time when he was in the hospital in 2015. We headed down the road very excited to a point where we thought it would work,” Riley said. “And then the physical couldn’t clear him to the next step.”
Riley said the team has been surprised by Bosh’s comments about the team.
“It wasn’t like [gesture of washing his hands of it]. He wasn’t just written off,” Riley said. “That may have been his attitude and his perception of it because he didn’t want to believe what was out there. That bothered me. He wasn’t written off. Besides that, we did everything we could.”
Riley said the Heat attempted to work with Bosh after his episode this past February, saying to him at that time, “We will do whatever we can to help facilitate you getting back to the court. And we got to that point,” Riley said. “We had come to that point. We had a huge conference at the end of June, where everybody was on that call.”
Riley said he appreciates Bosh’s efforts going forward to return to the game.
“I understand what he’s trying to do,” Riley said. “It’s a heroic effort.”
Riley said Bosh will not be around the team in the near future, with the Heat now with a clean break from their Big Three era, with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade having left the team in free agency. He says he’s excited about the team’s rebuild.
source: Sun-Sentinel
