Bosh still expects to make NBA return
Chris Bosh continues to hold to his belief that he will one day play in the NBA again. Even as his second mandated absence - due to recurring blood clots - has stretched on for 14 months, the 11-time All-Star feels he has a future in the league.
"At heart I'm still an athlete," Bosh said on "Larry King Now," as transcribed by Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel. "That is not how I want it to end."
Blood clots were first discovered in Bosh's lungs during the All-Star break in 2015, and he missed the final two months of the season. He returned to play the first two-thirds of the 2015-16 season before the condition resurfaced, a year later almost to the day.
Even if he does return to the NBA, it appears unlikely that it will be with the Miami Heat, the team he's belonged to for the past seven years. The Heat don't expect their doctors to grant Bosh clearance to play again, and in any case seem determined to move on from him (and the $52 million left on his contract).
Heat president Pat Riley has long been expected to try to negotiate a buyout agreement with Bosh this offseason, though as of last month, Bosh reportedly hadn't responded to the team's requests to discuss the situation.
"I understand what they have to do as a team," Bosh told King. "It is a business. I know we - as athletes and owners and people involved with the NBA - never want to say it's a business, and things like that. It is a business. And hurt does come in with that. But as president of the Miami Heat, I understand what he has to do."
Bosh, 33, has averaged 19.2 points, 8.5 rebounds, two assists, and one block in his 13-season career with the Heat and Toronto Raptors.