Q & A with NY Knicks Prime Free Agent Target Chris Bosh – Part 1

In what can only be described as a ‘calculated coincidence’, on the day of the 2010 NBA Draft, Toronto Raptors prospective free agent power forward Chris Bosh co-hosted the ‘Mike and Mike in the Morning’ show on 1050 ESPN Radio with regular host Mike Greenberg and NBA Insider extraordinaire Chris Broussard.

However, to say that Bosh, a 5-time NBA All-Star, co-hosted the four-hour program would be a gross overstatement. Simply put, Bosh’s presence on the show was an opportunity to pick the brain of a prominent member of the most highly anticipated free agent class in professional sports history.

The 26-year-old Bosh, a 2002 McDonald’s All-American and the fourth overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, fielded questions from Greenberg and Broussard and calls from fans of teams that would be drastically improved by his addition to their respective rosters. Even actor/comedian Adam Sandler joined the fray to make a pitch on behalf of the New York Knicks.

The Dallas native, who averaged 24.0 points and 10.8 rebounds per game with the Raptors this past season, provided some poignant perspective on his thought processes as he prepares to be heavily recruited by a score of franchises, including New York, that are counting on him to be a significant piece of the foundation in the construction of a championship team.

From this particular point, what follows are highlights from Bosh’s special appearance on ‘Mike and Mike in the Morning’.

‘Mike and Mike in the Morning’ – Thursday, June 24

Greenberg: Let’s get right to it. After all this talk and all of this anticipation, the clock is going to strike midnight and it’s going to be July 1st. At that moment, where physically are you going to be?

Bosh: I’m a be home.

Greenberg: Is home Toronto or home is Dallas?

Bosh: Dallas; I’m a just be hangin’ out.

Greenberg: In your house?

Bosh: I’m a keep the situation as normal as possible, and just hang out at home and sit by the phone and wait for it to ring.

Greenberg: Are you anticipating a phone call or are you anticipating (Simulates knocking on a door) “Hi ya, Chris; it’s Donnie Walsh, I’m standing outside can I come in?”

(Laughter follows)

Bosh: Well, if that happen I don’t know whether I should let him in or call the police. (Additional laughter follows) It’s not easy to get to my front door.

Greenberg: So should we take it as a sign that if you call the police you’re not signing with that team?

(More laughter ensues)

Bosh: Probably after that, I don’t think they want me to talk to them anymore.

Greenberg: Are you kidding? Donnie Walsh would do 10 years in jail if it meant you signing with the Knicks. (Laughter) OK, so seriously, so you’ll be there in the house. What are you anticipating? What do you expect? Are you expecting in the first minute, stuff to happen?

Bosh: Yeah.

Greenberg: What?

Bosh: I don’t know. Just a lot of conversations with my agent, and I don’t know when I’m gonna go to sleep. I know we’ve been talking about this for a while and he was like yeah, you know, the offers are gonna come in right at 12:01; and he has to do his job and let me know the information that he’s received and relay it to me, and we’ll go from there. I mean pretty much he was like yo, you need to keep your whole first week open. So I cancelled a lot of things. I was trying to do some fun stuff but, you know, it’s business first.

Greenberg: Well, this could be fun.

Bosh: Well yeah, I make everything fun; my life is fun.

Greenberg: Chris Broussard, what you do expect? Do you expect people lined up at his door? Will there be people standing outside? Will they have to take a number like people waiting for the ‘Twilight’ premiere?

Broussard: It’s going to be interesting. I mean, typically, teams just make calls. And I wanted to ask Chris, how much does it matter to you who’s that first to make the call? Does that play a role in it? Or if a team did come to visit you at 12:01 versus a team that just made a phone call?

Bosh: Well, I don’t think the order of the calls are that important or the home visits or whatever. I think it’s just pretty much catered to what I want to do. I’m in a situation where I can control the situation, so I just want to be comfortable and make sure that we do things the way I want to do 'em.

Greenberg: What will be some of the deciding factors? In an NBA where essentially everyone knows how much money they can offer you and everyone, besides Toronto, can essentially offer you the same amount of money; what’s next, what is the next consideration for Chris Bosh?

Bosh: Well, I mean it’s winning first off; I just want to be in a situation where I can win basketball games. I want to win a championship. I think that’s the dream of every NBA player, and I know I’m gonna do it; it’s just picking out the right situation for me. That’s what it’s all about for me. I’ve struggled in the past and, you know, it’s been a growing process since I got to the league but I feel that I’ve worked hard enough to put myself in this position right now; and make sure I can win games next year. That’s all I want to do. I’m a winner, I believe heavily in competing hard every night and just giving it your all; so I can’t wait to see what happens.

Greenberg: Now in an interview that you did with SNY, SportsNet New York, one of the questions that was asked of you is how good are the Knicks’ chances of signing you and you said, “We’ll see after Draft Night.” Now that’s tonight. Why did you say that? What is the significance of Draft Night?

Bosh: Well, I think the significance is very important. Just like you said earlier, a lot of teams are gonna be putting themselves in better position to make some moves for next week and that makes for a lot of movement in the draft. And that kind of makes the draft exciting; you know people love trades in the draft. I think there’s gonna be a lot of movement tonight. There’s a lot of teams trying to move up, some teams trying to move down, trying to get more picks, trying to clear cap space, trying to build on their core that they have with their team in their city. So everybody’s trying to get better and be put in better positions.

Greenberg: Some people took that quote and interpreted it to mean the possibility of a sign-and-trade; that before the Draft tonight that you would potentially sign a contract with Toronto and then be traded somewhere. Is that a possibility? Is there a possibility of a sign-and-trade that could be worked out sooner than people are expecting?

Bosh: No, there’s not much talking at all. It’s not anything you can do right now. That’s the toughest thing about being in this situation, everybody has their cards and they’re not showing them. So there’s always gonna be speculation and everything, you know, I just laugh at it. We just try to stick with what’s working right now and what we need to work on for preparation for July 1st.

Click here to read the original article on Examiner.com, which includes relevant links and a special video presentation featuring Chris Bosh.

Read More

Gerald Henderson Taken for Golf Skills

The lottery portion of the NBA draft is done, and here are some initial thoughts. It's shaping up to be a certifiably wacky draft. Phoenix is making some legit noise. Minny got Rubio and Flynn and may be trading the Spaniard. Brandon Jennings, afraid to be last in the green room, took his hand shake 4 picks late. Austin Daye and Jrue Holiday were the two guys invited not taken in the lottery. Tiger's team is even getting in on the draft day action, trading for Vince Carter. I don't know what this'll look like when the dust settles. What I do know so far is Gerald Henderson, Jr. was picked by the Charlotte Bobcats so he could help Michael Jordan with his short game. Henderson was a junior pro champ, and talked about the difficulty of choosing to pursue a career in basketball instead. Of course, he can also do this:

Read More

NBA Draft talent overview

Also at HOOPS DRAFTOLOGY 2009 and The FDH Lounge, which has videos of the top prospects up and will be live-blogging tonight's proceedings.

In an NBA Draft this depleted in terms of sure-fire stars, it’s almost fitting that the only legitimate one is headed for a SoCal-based team responsible for crushing more hopes and dreams than the Hollywood casting couch.

Oklahoma PF Blake Griffin possesses undeniable franchise-player ability, but his ability to develop further will be seriously challenged by the Clippers’ logjam at forward — as well as the very concept of being drafted by the Clippers themselves. He heads up an average power forward class that will see only one other player designated as a certain lottery pick (Arizona’s Jordan Hill). Two other players trying to shake the damning-with-faint-praise description as “great college players,” UNC’s Tyler Hansbrough and Pittsburgh’s DeJuan Blair, should go in the early part of the non-lottery portion of the proceedings. They do project as excellent rotation players over the long haul and are the only other ones who can rest easy that their names will be called during the first round.

If the marquee player’s position in this bad draft qualifies as the average one in the event, how do the other ones rate? In a nutshell, the backcourt positions are both a tad better, while the other frontcourt positions are either a little worse (small forward) or much, much worse (center).

^ Point Guard: Spain’s Ricky Rubio is the keynote talent here and would likely be tagged as the second overall pick in the draft had a team other than Memphis landed in the spot. Syracuse’s Jonny Flynn and high-schooler-turned-Europro Brandon Jennings bring lottery-quality flash and upside to the position, while tweener Stephen Curry is turning enough heads with his shooting and his bloodlines to be certain of a Top 10 slotting. UCLA”s Jrue Holliday may also sneak into the lottery, despite his rawness. Later in the round, low-ceiling-but-safe Ty Lawson from UNC should end up in a nice situation with a good team, while Wake Forest’s Jeff Teague seems very likely to go in the first round. UCLA’s Darren Collison and VCU’s Eric Maynor also have a chance to be taken before the end of the first round.

^ Shooting Guard: Arizona State’s James Hardin is a lock to be the first “2” taken off the board, somewhere in the top four overall, with USC’s DeMar DeRosan and Memphis’s Tyreke Evans trailing close behind. Duke’s Gerald Henderson could crack the lottery, as could Arizona’s Chase Budinger (less likely), with a host of other shooting guards looking to drop between picks 20-30 (Louisville’s Terrence Williams, LSU’s Marcus Thornton, UNC’s Wayne Ellington, Temple’s Dionte Christmas and Florida State’s Toney Douglas).

^ Shooting Forward: Few if any NBA teams can count on an impact upgrade from this position and it is possible that there will not be a “3” taken with a lottery pick. Wake Forest’s James Johnson could well be the first to go based on potential, with Louisville’s Earl Clark, Gonzaga’s Austin Daye and potentially Pittsburgh’s Sam Young being drafted in that vicinity. Other than Israel’s Omar Casspi, there are no other first round near-locks.

^ Center: The toughest position in terms of finding talent year in and year out is truly a “black hole of suckage” in 2009. UConn’s Hasheem Thabeet will go between picks 2-4 overall and is being compared to Dikembe Mutombo in terms of UPSIDE! ‘Nuff said. Other than him, only Ohio State’s BJ Mullins, an offensively-talented 7-footer coming off of a disappointing freshman year, can count on a first-round selection.

The dropoff from Griffin to the next player, likely Rubio, is severe in terms of projecting numerous certain All-Star selections — which, health permitting, would in a normal year be quite likely for at least a few high lottery picks. There are potentially 8-10 players in this draft capable of pulling intermittent All-Star designations during their career if they go through an immense amount of development. It is scant exaggeration to say that most of the players in the top ten would be going at least five slots lower in a normal year and players beyond the top ten would be going no less than ten slots lower in a normal year. In a league that tries to use the draft process to even out the overall talent distribution, this year’s class won’t even come close to accomplishing that.

Read More

2 A.M. Two-fer: More Cavs Fun

We can't help but continue to applaud the Cavs for doing it the fun way. If I were an athlete, that's how I'd hope to spend my career. Here we have a vid of the King's horsemen Delonte West and Mo Williams trying to steal the lime light from Lebron. Clowning around before games is all well and good, but during a time out? This is worse and more intimidating than KG's hand-clap-in-your-face/get-down-on-all-fours-on-ya or the Lakers vaunted we're-so-much-better-than-you-that-our-starters-will-ice-up-after-the-3rd-quarter (by the by, this one got pwned last week when the Lakeshow had to pull Kobe & co. from their ice baths to stop the bleeding against the Clippers). That's right. The Cavs are so dominant right now, their beating you down is like a vacation they just need to get on film. Recognize!

Also, sifting through YouTube, I've found that there are countless game recaps from your everyday vlogger. This one caught my attention, though. I like that he's planning for lottery bound teams' funerals. He also trots out this theory: "I guess that makes me less American, 'cause I don't eat popcorn." He talks about draft picks and, of course, that essential topic of women watching sports. Jump to 4:14 to hear the female related talk. (Another choice line: "I don't know who watches sports with their jump off")

Read More