Chris Bosh on his book, the Heat, Pat Riley and his advice for Bam Adebayo
Chris Bosh selected Miami Heat president Pat Riley as one of the two presenters for his Sept. 11 enshrinement into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
The former Heat star forward also chose Riley to write the foreword to his new book, “Letters to a Young Athlete,” that came out June 1. Bosh, 37, noted that the book is “for anyone out there trying to accomplish great things.”
“Pat’s name came up and we’ve always had a connection,” Bosh said during an interview with the Miami Herald earlier this offseason. “He had shared with me that he was a writer and it didn’t even occur to me that I should read his book. You know, we just had those connections through the conversations, and I asked him [to write the foreword]. You got to ask and he said yes. I was just, of course, over the moon, and he took his time. But when he sent it back, I didn’t know what to feel. It’s just like reading these words from a legend, and they’re so complimentary and so nice.”
Bosh’s NBA story is unique, as his Hall of Fame career came to an unexpected and abrupt end when ongoing blood clot issues in 2016 pushed him into retirement after 13 seasons. In six seasons with the Heat from 2010 to 2016, Bosh won two NBA championships, appeared in four NBA Finals and was voted into six All-Star Games while playing alongside LeBron James and Dwyane Wade as part of the Big 3.
“The book was cathartic in a sense that it helped me kind of get those things out as opposed to being angry,” Book said of the writing process. “Channeling that energy and making it something positive. Letting people know that, yeah, you need to play every day like it’s your last game. It can happen, trust me. It happened to me. I want to be an example to let them know that it’s on two levels. The game can be taken away from you at any moment, and the game is subjective. You can be a lawyer, you can be a doctor, you can be a chef. It can just stop at a moment’s notice. It’s good to have other interests, it’s good to be curious and it’s good to just have these principles because you’re going to have to use them over and over.”
Here’s what Bosh had to say about the Heat during an interview from earlier this summer ...
Q: The Heat was swept in a best-of-seven playoff series for just the second time in franchise history last season. From your perspective, what happened?
Chris: “Sometimes lumps are good. We are not immune to a [butt] whooping, to be quite frank. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It was a crazy season. It’s good to see the difference when you have that ‘X’ on your back. I think everybody understood that this year because, yeah, people are going to come when they’re playing the Heat. It was already kind of like that. But for them to catch people slipping and have a few knockouts last year getting to the Finals, when people see that you get a little more focus from your opponents.
“I think it’s good to have that sort of disappointment sometimes because it’s good to know that you have to get better. With that said, Victor [Oladipo] being out, I’m sure that kind of took the wind out of their sail a little bit.”
Q: The Heat made it to the NBA Finals in 2019-20 and were then swept out of the first round last season. What will it take to make another deep playoff run this upcoming season?
Chris: “You see what Brooklyn was trying to do. They’re swinging for the fences, man. That’s the day and age that we live in. But I think they have enough. Everything is there. They just have to get better. One thing that is true about the Heat, it trickles down from the top. Pat Riley and the Arison family, they’re always looking for ways to compete for a championship. Pat says it himself, ‘There’s winning and then there’s misery.’ So you can assume that they’re miserable. They’re always working.”
Q: What’s the next step for Bam Adebayo?
Chris: “Shoot it. That’s it. Shoot it. Shoot it. That’s all he needs to do is shoot it, I’m telling you. I did it for 13 years in the league, man, and it didn’t steer me wrong. Shoot it. He has the playmaking ability, he is unselfish. It’s wonderful that he’s a team player. But for him to get to where he wants to go, he’s going to have to shoot the ball. I think he’s more than capable. Once he proves that he’s a threat out there, Brook Lopez and DeAndre Jordan and all those bigs, they can’t just be in the middle of the paint playing traffic cop. He needs to come back and he needs to shoot it until they guard him. That would be my recommendation.”
Q: You went from a midrange to a three-point shooter during your time with the Heat. What’s that potential transition like for a player like Bam?
Chris: “It’s just a few steps back. That’s what a coach told me, ‘Yo, don’t let the line get in your head. It’s a couple feet.’ And I think it did take me a couple years to get used to the rhythm of the game shooting it. I would practice it, and then you have to get used to it. Once you develop that habit in practice, then you have to get used to the rhythm in the game. But once you get it, you continue to put the work in and it won’t matter. You’ll continue to be successful. But he needs to shoot it.”
This story was originally published August 30, 2021 at 10:35 AM.
