Heat’s Chris Bosh inducted into Hall of Fame with Riley, Wade, James and others watching on
Chris Bosh’s NBA career ended abruptly in 2016 before he expected it to. But Bosh, one of the best players in Miami Heat history, still ended up where many expected he would — the Hall of Fame.
Bosh, whose playing career was cut short after 13 seasons because of a series of medical issues related to blood clots, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday in Springfield, Massachusetts, as part of the 2021 class.
“Legends aren’t defined by their successes,” Bosh said during his 17-minute induction speech with his wife, Adrienne, and five children watching on. “They’re defined by how they bounce back from their failures, and that’s what I hope to communicate to anyone watching this, especially the kids. When you look back at my career, when you visit Springfield and see my plaque, it’s going to seem inevitable that I ended up here.
“That’s how I felt about my heroes growing up. I thought they were automatically destined for greatness. But as I’ve been reflecting on my career, I realize that the accomplishments were anything but guaranteed.”
Bosh went on to list the adversity he faced and how it helped push him to the Hall of Fame, from tough losses during his childhood in Texas to his tears that were caught on national TV after the Heat’s loss in the 2011 NBA Finals to receiving his career-ending blood clot diagnosis.
“I never thought we would get that far and lose,” Bosh said of the 2011 NBA Finals. “As soon as the buzzer went off, I broke down. Unfortunately for me, the cameras caught it. ... At that moment, I didn’t feel like an All-Star. I didn’t feel like a champion. I felt like I was 11 years old again crying after losing a game.”
The list of other players enshrined Saturday included Paul Pierce, Chris Webber, Ben Wallace, Toni Kukoc, Clarence Jenkins, Bob Dandridge, and former WNBA players Yolanda Griffith and Lauren Jackson. Villanova coach Jay Wright, and former NBA coaches Rick Adelman and Bill Russell, who already was enshrined as a player, were also part of this year’s 16-person Hall of Fame class.
Bosh was the final one to speak on Saturday. At 37 years old, he’s also the youngest member of this year’s Hall of Fame class and one of the youngest inductees in NBA history.
While Bosh’s NBA career ended earlier than expected, he still accomplished a lot. He put up career averages of 19.2 points on 49.4 percent shooting, 8.5 rebounds, two assists and one block in 893 regular-season games (881 starts), and he was an 11-time All-Star.
Bosh is one of 13 players in NBA history to average at least 19.2 points and 8.5 rebounds in a career that included at least 11 All-Star selections. All 13 are now in the Hall of Fame.
Bosh spent the first seven seasons of his NBA career with the Raptors before joining the Heat as a free agent in the summer of 2010 to form the Big 3 with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.
In six seasons with the Heat (2010-2016), Bosh won two NBA championships in 2012 and 2013, appeared in four NBA Finals and was voted into six All-Star Games.
Among the Heat’s all-time leaders, Bosh still ranks fifth in points (6,914) and free throws made (1,469), sixth in scoring average (18.0), defensive rebounds (2,258) and field goals made (2,595), seventh in total rebounds (2,816) and blocks (332), and 10th in minutes played (13,121).
“Heat Nation, are you here?” Bosh asked during his speech at MassMutual Center. “I mean, you remember a 27-game winning streak, four Finals in a row, 11 consecutive All-Star games and that’s if you’re a numbers person. I got to have big plays in the Finals, back-to-back championships.”
Heat president Pat Riley and former Heat teammate Ray Allen served as Bosh’s presenters for his enshrinement into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Bosh began his speech Saturday by returning the 2006 championship ring that Riley gave him during their free-agent meeting in 2010.
“When I met Pat during free agency he pulled out every trick and it was quite the performance,” Bosh recalled. “As I was starting to stand up to leave from the meeting, he pulled out one last trick. He took out this velvet bag full of championship rings and dumped them all across the table and he picked one up and he looked me dead in my eye and he said, ‘You give it back to me when we win one together.’
“Now when I think about it, it was crazy because I hadn’t even agreed to sign with Miami. But that’s Pat. We did win a ring together, two of them. But I never gave back the one he loaned me because for whatever reason, I wanted to wait until the right moment and I figured this would be a good moment.”
The moment drew a laugh from the crowd as Bosh walked over to Riley on stage to return the ring, and the two shared a hug.
There were others from Bosh’s Heat past that were in attendance Saturday, including coach Erik Spoelstra, vice president of player programs Alonzo Mourning, Wade, James, among others.
“As you start playing the game and you understand this journey, you realize that it’s just an accumulation of your entire career, and you put together that kind of career where you can go into a room like Chris is going into today, that you’ve done something pretty, pretty cool in your life,” Wade said during an NBA TV interview while walking the red carpet with his wife, Gabrielle Union, in Springfield.
“So for Chris, for his career to end before he wanted it to, him not be able to play the entire time the way he wanted to, and still be that Hall of Famer, to get that nod right away, at a young age, it has to feel special.”
Already enshrined in the Hall of Fame for careers that included time with the Heat are Allen, Mourning, O’Neal, Gary Payton, and Riley. Former Heat assistant coach Bob McAdoo is also in the Hall, with Bosh formally joining that list on Saturday.
Bosh is the first member of the Heat’s Big 3 to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, but another will soon follow. Wade is eligible to enter the Hall of Fame in 2023 — four full seasons into retirement — and he’s expected to be a first-ballot inductee.
Bosh didn’t expected to become a Hall of Famer so young. He planned to still be playing in the NBA. But Bosh’s career ended suddenly and he’s now at peace with that.
“After finally making it to the mountain top with so much more to do in my mind, so much more to prove, suddenly it all stopped,” Bosh said near the end of his speech. “By now I don’t have to tell you that there were plenty of tears that day and in the days since. But in going through those crossroads, I eventually came to realize that we all have it in our power to make the most out of every day despite what happens to turn setbacks into strengths. Because in a way, that’s the lesson I’ve been learning my whole life.
“I would like to think that all those tears from me crying ... they weren’t endings, they were beginnings. They weren’t moments that made me want to stop working. They were moments that made me want to work even harder. And when I think about it, they were more than tears. They were the water that made it possible for the seeds of greatness inside me to grow.”
This story was originally published September 11, 2021 at 11:26 PM.
