So that’s why Chris Bosh made it a point to talk about hooping again.
On the heels of Bosh using Snapchat to declare that he’s playing basketball, suggesting that he’s on track to return to the court for the Miami Heat after missing the latter halves of each of the last two seasons, we now have this from the Miami Herald‘s Barry Jackson:
With Chris Bosh going on the offensive this week, the message to the Heat is clear: Getting salary cap relief for Bosh’s contract, if he isn’t cleared to play, is going to be a mighty contentious struggle.
We’re told the Bosh camp remains frustrated with the Heat’s handling of his situation, and that’s part of the reason Bosh and wife Adrienne have gone on a social media blitz this week. As one NBA official said, Bosh wants the public to know he wants to play amid the Heat’s silence.
The Heat has declined to say if Bosh will be cleared – Bosh has been awaiting word himself – but the team disputes any notion that it is trying to keep him off the court to remove his salary from the cap.
This whole situation is weird. Bosh has very deliberately gone out of his way to talk about being healthy. Not a peep, meanwhile, is being heard from the Heat. You want to believe the disconnect is borne from concern, but the salary-cap gymnastics loom large.
Then again, the Heat, as Jackson notes, are unlikely to get Bosh’s future salary removed from the books, since he will in all likelihood fight the process. And that only makes this weirder. Why would the Heat want the final two years of Bosh’s deal, since 2016-17 is already counting against the ledger, expunged so badly? It’s not like he’s incapable when he’s on the floor; he can actually help them as a rim protector and floor-spacer when he’s in the game.
Having that extra flexibility leading into 2017 free agency would be nice, but Bosh remains an All-Star when healthy. So unless this is truly an issue of his well-being, it would make no sense for Miami to press the issue. Successfully getting him off the team is a long shot to begin with, and the alternative has them trying to rehabilitate a star who, if able to play, isn’t yet out of his prime.
