I think it's going to be bad for the league as well. It may turn Miami into a big market team, but it puts Cleveland and Toronto in terrible situations.
I'm sorry. But there is nothing in Bosh's game that would make me pay to watch him. I doubt that the Raptors will be much worse without him.
I don't think his departure hurts the Raptors franchise at all.
The Raptors shouldn't have felt much of a loss from Bosh's departure if Colangelo kept the roster together.
At least not in the short term ... in the long term they would have hurt.
Ed Davis and Amir Johnson would have been able to replace Bosh's rebounding + defensive contributions. Less touches going to Bosh would have meant more touches to Hedo Turkoglu and his playmaking ability. Hedo would take a little of the scoring and replace a good chunk of the remaining scoring with his passing. Also, Turk's playmaking is easily an upgrade over Bosh's playmaking.
So the Raptors should have only felt a minor drop in scoring ability with Bosh leaving but be comparable everywhere else + still remained a threat for a final playoff spot in the East. Similar to last season. A 8th or 9th place team.
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That isn't so much a slight against Bosh as it a description of the Raptors ... of Toronto's personnel and their specific strengths and weaknesses.
That addition of Ed Davis + the re-signing of Amir Johnson was going to cover up a lot of of Bosh's non-go-to-scoring contributions + the increased role for Turkoglu and re-distributed shots amongst the rest of their talented offensive supporting cast should have made up for most of Bosh's offense.
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Unfortunately, Turkoglu is now gone and that will be a hurting on the Raptors offense. I expect them to miss Turk more than they expect to. He gave their offense a dynamic feel to it. They could attack with the PG, the wing, a big in Bosh and had a weapon in Bargnani. Now, all of their dribble penetration + playmaking + shot-creation is going to stem from the point guard position which makes them predictable and easier to defend (Bargnani doesn't create much of his own offense, relies on others).
So the decline in creative offense (shot creation and/or playmaking -- Bosh + Turkoglu) should be more apparent now than it would have been.
So, they are more like a 30-35 win team now than the 37-41 win team they would have been with Turkoglu (without Chris Bosh).
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Where the Raptors will miss Chris Bosh is a couple of years down the road. He was a very good building block to a future title team.
In similar way that losing Paul Pierce in 2005 would have stopped the Celtics from putting a contender together down the road.
It wasn't Chris Bosh's fault that Bryan Colangelo failed spectacularly to put a quality supporting cast around him. Colangelo had more than enough chances and he wasted them all away.
Once BC got over his Bargnani fixation or once a new GM came in ... Toronto would have been given a new lease of life and building around Bosh would have been an excellent option. An option they've now lost ... something that should force the Raptors into a full-blown rebuilding process (although Colangelo is refusing to do that, so the rebuilding process should take even longer than it needs to).