J-Roc wrote:Stats never mean much to me, though I always do appreciate your effort. I watch the games. And when we NEED Bosh to drive, he takes jumpshots. And it would be cool if he'd hit every open J, but he doesn't. Defenders sag off him and dare him to shoot. If defender did that to Dirk, Dirk would hit the shot. Bosh isn't THAT good a shooter.
See, your mistake here is that you're looking at it through the wrong lens. The Raptors need Bosh to do everything on the court. They need a stop down the stretch against a big or against a guard that has been torching their defense all game? Bosh gets that responsibility. They need a key rebound? Bosh gets that responsibility. They need to crack the opposing defense down the stretch? Bosh gets that responsibility. The other guys crack the defense a bit for Bosh giving him more options with the ball? Heck no. That means the Raptors still need to score only Bosh gets to do that without much help from his teammates out there.
Bosh's biggest problem right now is that he's the best Raptors at pretty much everything out there on the floor except for a few things like bringing the ball up the court and 3-point shooting, and even there he's better at getting open for a 3 which closes that gap a lot. As such, the Raptors rely on him for absolutely everything rather than going to their other players because they know those other guys aren't as good.
Ultimately, what would be best for the Raptors AND Bosh, would be to get who can actually be relied upon to play specific roles and take some of those responsibilities away from Bosh. Right now, it's only happening in very small doses. Jose gets to bring the ball up the court and pass to open jumpshooters, but if that option isn't there for him he gets to give it to Bosh and let him do the hard work. Bargnani has recently been taking some of the scoring responsibility off of Bosh which has allowed Bosh to focus more on defense and rebounding, which has been MUCH better of late, even though most people seem to refuse to see it, simply because of the reduced responsibilities on his shoulders. Marion has been taking some of the rebounding responsibilities off his shoulders, too. The result? Bosh is better than ever down the stretch and plays with more energy for the whole game because he doesn't have to do everything. The problem? Those guys still aren't good enough, particularly when it comes to consistency and reliability.
The only guy who fits the description you've been outlining in this thread is Lebron. He's the only guy with the combination of size, speed, quickness, endurance, and perhaps most importantly, strength so that his team can rely on him to do absolutely everything for them at all times. Will Bosh ever be Lebron? No. But blaming the team's only above average starter for the fact that the team is losing more than it's winning is backwards reasoning. The Raptors need more above average starters like Bosh, not less. If paying Bosh ~$21 mil a season scares a person, why on earth wouldn't paying Calderon and Bargnani a combined ~$25 mil a season scare them?
