What do I have against Chris Bosh? Nothing, really. If I'm being honest, I regurgitated a few basketball truisms and dismissed Bosh out of hand. "You can't win with a jump-shooting power forward...he's not the best player on a good team...blahblahblah." But then I thought I'd actually try thinking about it, try to put Bosh in context and decide then if what I lazily thought was true.
Firstly, is there a modern player with a game similar to CB4's? The closest I could come up with (other than David West. Zing!) is Tim Duncan. Big, true power forwards often miscast as centers. Good touch around the basket but can make a jump shot too. So I thought why not see how Bosh and Duncan stack up?
Firstly, is there a modern player with a game similar to CB4's? The closest I could come up with (other than David West. Zing!) is Tim Duncan. Big, true power forwards often miscast as centers. Good touch around the basket but can make a jump shot too. So I thought why not see how Bosh and Duncan stack up?
If we discount the first two years of Bosh's career, he is on a very similar path to Tim Duncan
There biggest change in either chart is Bosh in 2010. He finally gets up almost 10 shots per game inside 10 feet. Looking at Duncan's, chart we see that's a baseline for The Big Fundamental. Inside 10 feet, Bosh is more likely to get fouled (career high in free throws attempts!) and take higher percentage shots (career high true shooting percentage!) There's no way this is a coincidence. Bosh shaved nearly two outside jumpers a night off his total, his new total of 3 more along Timmy D's lines.
Using the top nine rotation guys (by minutes played) of each team, we see the teams surrounding Bosh and young Duncan are nearly identical. One key, key difference: Duncan had one teammate (David Robinson) with a PER over 20 during each of those four years. Bosh had two teammates with PERs over 20: T.Jose Calderford in the same season, a year in which Ford played only 50 games while Jason Kapono and Andrea Bargnani played 80 each and put up PERs under 11.
So CB4 and Time Duncan aren't that different, it's the team around them. If teams built around Duncan can multiple titles, why not a team built around Bosh? They should at least be able to make a deep run in the playoffs.
So CB4 and Time Duncan aren't that different, it's the team around them. If teams built around Duncan can multiple titles, why not a team built around Bosh? They should at least be able to make a deep run in the playoffs.
He makes some really good points. What do you think? Is Bosh approaching Tim Duncan's prime level of play? Can Bosh be the focal point to a championship team?
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