The Heat Cucked The Shit Out Of The Raptors By Retiring Chris Bosh's Jersey First
As you may be aware, last night the Heat sent Chris Bosh’s #1 to the rafters in what was a pretty cool ceremony for like the 10 Heat fans there are nowadays. After watching the ceremony thought I couldn’t help but think it was a little odd that the Heat did this before the franchise Bosh spend the majority of his career with. Like when people think of Chris Bosh, do they think of the Heat? I don’t. I know he won a couple titles there and all that so I’m not saying they shouldn’t have done it all together, but to be the first franchise to do it seems wrong.
Then again, it doesn’t take much to get your jersey retired as a member of the Heat. They have 6 jerseys in the rafters, and you can bank on Wade and LeBron eventually, and of those 6 current ones here is the list
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Chris Bosh: 6 Seasons in MIA – Averaged 18.0 points, 7.3 rebounds in 384 games, 6x All-Star, 2 titles
Tim Hardaway: 6 Seasons in MIA – Averaged 17.3 points, 7.8 assists, 1.5 steals in 367 games, All-NBA 1st, 2x All-Star\
Dan Marino: Seriously, not a joke
Michael Jordan: This is just weird
Shaq: 4 Seasons in MIA – Averaged 19.6 points, 9.1 rebounds, 1.9 blocks in 205 games, NBA’s Top 50, 2x All-NBA 1st, 3x All-Star, 1 title
Alonzo Mourning: 11 Seasons in MIA – Averaged 16.0 points, 8.1 rebounds, 2.7 blocks in 593 games, All-NBA 1st, 2x DPOY, 2x All-NBA Defensive 1st, 5x All-Star
Listen, to each their own. I root for a team that has like 30 retired numbers and it’s such a problem they don’t even have real numbers to give free agents. The more I looked into this I learned something pretty interesting. Did you know the Raptors have 0 retired jerseys? Sure they’ve only been around since 1995, and really the only guys I could think of that would deserve that honor are like Vince Carter, DeMar DeRozan and Bosh, and seeing as how Vince and DeRozan are still playing and there may be some bad blood with Vince given how he left, I don’t get why Bosh wasn’t the first one to break through. Maybe he eventually will, but when I think of Bosh I think of him as a Raptor and in my opinion it’s not his fault they never surrounded him with any sort of talent.
If you look at their franchise records, Bosh is #1 in OREB, #1 in DREB, #2 in points, #2 in points per game, #1 in rebounds per game and total rebounds, 7th in blocks, 2nd in win shares, and 1st in defensive win shares. Yes, he left to go join a super team but that’s no reason to hold a grudge against one of the best players that franchise ever saw. He gave them 7 seasons, was a legit franchise player, they just couldn’t get over the hump with just 2 first round exits in his tenure. Obviously he was good on the Heat in his new role, so again I get them wanting to do something like this, it just feels weird.
Maybe this is just a me problem because I deep down hate those Heat teams for always beating the Celtics and Bosh was much more beatable as a Raptor. All I know is the Raptors can’t sit back and let MIA get all the Bosh glory. They have to come back with an even better celebration given he was theirs first, and if not they’re just letting Pat Riley win once again.