Miami Heat Should Trade Chris Bosh

Last postseason, Miami Heat power forward Chris Bosh had a reason for being invisible; he was injured.

Bosh went down with an abdominal strain in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals during last year’s playoffs forcing him to miss nine games. He wasn’t fully healthy when he returned but he still put up better numbers than he is putting up now.

Bosh is supposedly playing through an ankle injury this year but the fact of the matter is he hasn’t made any attempt to be aggressive in the paint. Instead he has decided to settle for long jumpers and three-pointers.

Now I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure they brought Ray Allen in over the summer to handle the long range bombing chores.

The change in Bosh’s game comes at an inopportune time for the Heat. Last year, even though Bosh was hurt he still helped on the boards.

Bosh only had three games with less than six rebounds the entire 2012 playoffs. So far this year he has had nine such games.

Bosh doesn’t even make an effort to set up shop in the post anymore which has forced LeBron James to become the team’s resident post scorer. That’s not good considering James has enough responsibilities placed on his shoulders as it is.

There may still be enough talent on this team for the Heat to win the Finals but it’s not looking like they’re going to get much from Bosh and that’s a shame considering Bosh is getting paid max-player money for his poor play.

And that may be enough to convince Heat president Pat Riley to jettison Bosh this offseason.

The Heat will be over the salary cap going into next season which means they will have to pay a penalty. Riley may be willing to risk a penalty in order to keep James and Dwyane Wade but it’s getting increasingly doubtful that he will keep the poorly-performing Bosh.

With the money Bosh makes though it’s going to be hard to find a trade partner. It’s possible that the Raptors’ new GM may be willing to take him back or some other team looking for a talented big man.

Whichever team takes an interest in him this summer they better not expect to get much production out of him in the post. Miami sure hasn’t.

Roosevelt Hall is an NFL Blogger for The Sport Mentalist and an NBA Blogger for The Sport Mentalist 2. He can be contacted at sportmentalist@yahoo.com and be sure to follow him on Twitter @sportmentalist.