Chris Bosh Changed the NBA, and Belongs in the Basketball Hall of Fame

Let's just come right out with it: Whether he ever plays in the NBA again or not, Chris Bosh should one day be enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

What else besides a Hall of Famer do you call a player who, by the time he turned 32 years old, already was one of only 18 in history with at least 17,000 points, 7,500 rebounds, 700 steals, and 900 blocks in his career? Who is one of only 10 ever with a career average of at least 19 points. 8.5 rebounds, two assists, and a block per game?

What else besides a Hall of Famer do you call a player who had an early-career peak where he averaged 21.8 points, 9.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and a block per game over the course of five seasons in which he made the All-Star team every year – and then became a completely different and in many ways better player who was an integral part of a team that went to four straight NBA Finals? What else besides a Hall of Famer do you call a two-time champion who goes to 11 consecutive All-Star Games?

What else besides a Hall of Famer do you call someone who is all of those things, and also one of the most culturally significant players of the post-2000 era NBA?

Along with Miami Heat teammates LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, Bosh helped usher in the still-ongoing super-team era in which the players control the balance of power in the league more than ever before, dictating the fate of franchises. (Oh, and let's not forget players arriving for games dressed like runway models. Have you seen the man wear a suit?) The trio's plan to team up and take over the entire league – legendarily hatched a few weeks after the 2008 Summer Olympics – was a stroke of genius that shifted the leverage dynamics between labor and management, players and front offices, the sort of seismic event we're unlikely to see again for a very long time.

The James-Wade-Bosh troika also changed the league on the floor, helping to usher in full-time small-ball and trap- and switch-happy defenses. The "Flying Death Machine" Heat had to be lightly pushed into those tactics by an injury to Bosh himself during their run to the 2012 title, but that style became the Heat's default upon his return, and basketball evolved as a result.

Bosh's role was central. His ability and willingness to be a supplementary stretch player on offense while also going balls to the wall on every defensive possession – swarming pick-and-rolls all over the floor, hedging and trapping and recovering and generally covering more space than any big man in the league – was, James' singular brilliance aside, the biggest key to unlocking Miami's full potential.

The quick, mobile big man that can eat space on one side of the floor and create it with his shooting and gravity on the other is now the platonic ideal of what teams look for in their power forwards and centers, and 2010-2014 Bosh embodied the archetype better than anyone. Every team that has adopted that style since has gone through some sort of search for a simulacrum. (James's Cavaliers of the last two years have split the role in two, with Kevin Love playing Bosh on offense and Tristan Thompson doing so on defense. The Cavs just won a title playing that way so they don't – and shouldn't – care, but there's no doubting that things were a bit cleaner in Miami, where the Heat had one guy providing all of those skills and could slot another floor-spacing defender on the floor alongside him and James in the front court.)

Despite his accomplishments and seemingly undeniable influence on the game, Bosh was pilloried often during the time Miami's Big Three was together. As a reward for making the biggest sacrifice of the trio, he suffered the biggest hit to his reputation. For the sin of altering his game to accommodate, augment, and amplify the skills of his teammates, he was derisively called a third wheel, a non-star, and worst of all, soft. That those labels couldn't have been further from the truth didn't matter; perception feeds reality in sports discourse.

In spite of that perception, or maybe because of it, Bosh became a sort of basketball hipster star. Declaring an affinity for his game became a way of signaling your seriousness about the NBA. It was like being clued in on the location of an underground poker club, only you also spent a ton of time trying to convince other poker players that the club actually existed and wasn't just an urban legend.

The last two years should have helped public perceptions about Bosh bounce back, as his numbers ticked back up a bit after James left Miami to head back to Cleveland. Unfortunately, the same span became about something else: each of the last two All-Star weekends have seen Bosh diagnosed with blood clots in a different part of his body – his lung in 2015; his leg in 2016 – effectively ending his season each time.

The clotting problem is severe enough that the Heat won't medically clear him to play. Pat Riley declared in no uncertain terms that Bosh's time in Miami is over and the team is not working toward his return to the court. Bosh insists that his NBA career is not done. Whether or not that's the case remains to be seen. It's difficult to envision a team being comfortable enough with the medical risks to actually put Bosh back on a court, but you never know.

Undoubtedly, many fans and media members would love to see him play again, but if this is the end of Bosh's basketball career, he's well-positioned for whatever comes next. Bosh is a husband and a father, and in many ways just a regular dude who's into things like coding, filmmaking, and reading books with the jacket cover ripped off so nobody can tell what he's digging into.

Bosh is articulate and well-spoken, too, and if he wants it, there's a long and prosperous career ahead of him in basketball media. He would fit seamlessly on any of the NBA's myriad studio shows, bringing a more modern and thoughtful perspective that we don't necessarily get from guys who made their bones in the 1990s and still think the solution to every team's problems is to stop taking jumpers and start barbecue-chickening teams in the post. Becoming his era's Charles Barkley would likely give Bosh the legacy boost that Chuck has been afforded since becoming a star on Inside the NBA, but Bosh also shouldn't really need to stay on television for his talent and impact be fully appreciated. He already has put in the work, and it's high time that he was properly recognized.

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