Sports Illustrated is about to tell the sports world just how good Chris Bosh really is. Somewhere in their upcoming feature, I have to assume, will be the words Kevin Garnett.Bosh is blowing up; garnering attention the NBA just hates to give the Raptors. And in his third NBA season he’s fielding more than his share of KG comparisons thanks to a lanky frame, deadly jump shot and absurd versatility.
What Sports Illustrated won’t tell you however, is that there’s far more to the comparison than meets the eye.
At 21 years old Bosh is still basically a kid. But when he was really a kid it was Garnett, also known as “Da Kid” that he idolized. He also loved Tim Duncan, which explains the beautiful bank shot, but that’s for another story.
Growing up in Dallas, Bosh watched KG spearhead a massive transformation in the NBA and sign one of the largest contracts in basketball history. He became one of the faces of the game, carved into new millennium hoops Mt. Rushmore alongside Allen Iverson, Duncan and the man known simply as Kobe.
It’s not hard to imagine that a young player in Bosh’s position would hope to emulate just about every part of his hero’s career and for that matter, life and with his talent, the former should come easily. If his all-star third season is any indication, max contracts, nauseatingly lucrative endorsement deals and multiple all-star appearances are all on the way.
But there’s a dark side to this story and for all that Bosh, like Garnett, is wandering towards a doomed existence, a state of basketball purgatory.
In a nine-year span Garnett’s Timberwolves made eight playoff appearances and enjoyed first-round exits in seven of them. The other two were a short sniff of the second stage and a disappointing 2004-05 where they missed the postseason altogether.
With a losing record this year that doesn’t appear likely to change soon. The Wolves are stuck in the mud, unable to fathom a post-Garnett era yet woefully inept when it comes to building a championship team around him.
Sound familiar? Probably not, because odds are you don’t pay attention to the Raptors. But if you did, you’d see the path of former Wolf Sam Mitchell’s team is eerily similar to his mid-late 90s Minnesota club, right down to the centerpiece. Even much-maligned ex-Raps general manager Rob Babcock was once employed in the land of Bob Dylan and the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince.
But believe it or not, the Raptors will be a good team. It may not be for a while and it may not be for very long, but it will happen. It’s got to. Too many young players, too many draft picks and a player in Bosh who’s just too damn good. Sooner or later, the stars will align and at least one, if not more, first-round appearances in the top-heavy Eastern Conference will materialize, maybe even before CB4’s contract needs an extension.
There’s lots of talk of him returning home to play for the Mavericks and Phil Jackson is tampering whenever possible in the hopes of finally finding someone Kobe can share the sandbox with. But the Raptors will go big on this one, as big as possible. And there aren’t too many instances where players book from teams they’re drafted by when the ceiling-scratcher contract is on the table.
So he’ll stay in Toronto and have a great career. But he’ll never know how the NBA Championship Trophy tastes, either literally or metaphorically, nor will he get the respect he deserves while marooned in a frozen wasteland (which could just as easily apply to Minneapolis).
And it’ll be sad. You won’t feel bad for Garnett when he’s inducted into Springfield and if Bosh puts together a similar career, you won’t be sorry for him either.
But when you go and visit, look at the stats or watch old games you’ll know those two were part of a much more exclusive group than the one limited to 6’11” guys with handles like point guards. They’re players who could have been brilliant on a bigger stage if they could’ve just found the right supporting cast. Their stories are crimes against basketball, so much beauty surrounded by such mediocrity.
Indeed, like KG with the Wolves, Bosh can and will continue to help the Raptors. But as long as he and Garnett are with said clubs, the rest of the basketball universe will forever be worse for it.