Hit Hard by Chris Bosh News, Miami Heat Keep Big Picture in Perspective

MIAMI — After more than a dozen years with the Miami Heat, after sharing the court and stage with some of the sport's most celebrated and controversial superstars, after winning three championships but also toiling for a 67-loss squad, there wouldn't seem to be much that could get Udonis Haslem shaking his head. And yet, in 2014-15, there's been so much. So much, seemingly without any stop or sense. 

"This season has been the most difficult," Haslem said. "Every time it seems like we turn the corner and get it going in the right direction, something happens that you can't control." 

Then something else happens that makes all the previous bad things that you couldn't control seem remarkably trivial by comparison. That's what, in an already odd and uncomfortable and exhausting Heat season, made Saturday the oddest and most exhausting and uncomfortable day of all.

By night, the basketball game seemed like such a sidelight, even if this latest 105-91 loss was lamentable in its own right, coming against a Pelicans team that had the services of Anthony Davis and Ryan Anderson for a total of 16 minutes due to significant-looking injuries to a shoulder and knee, respectively. 

You could say that Davis grimacing while grabbing his arm and Anderson getting helped off the court provided two more lessons in the fragility of competing in the NBA, but the Heat hardly needed any reminders. From LeBron James' stunning departure to Josh McRoberts' knee surgery to Dwyane Wade's assorted absences, there had already been sufficient adversity in the past seven months to put Sisyphus' boulder-pushing ordeal to shame.

So you had to know that, after Pat Riley appeared to pull a coup by plucking a premium point guard from Phoenix without sacrificing a member of the current core, something would swiftly go horribly wrong.

Such torture, after all, has been a prominent part of Heat history, even if the past decade's glory has caused some to forget; this is the organization, after all, that lost prime Juwan Howard to David Stern's enforcement of a salary-cap error, lost a playoff series to the hated Knicks on an Allan Houston runner that touched three parts of the rim and lost centerpiece Alonzo Mourning to kidney disease after constructing an elite cast around him.

This is an organization that seemed to lose that fatalism for four fantastic seasons.

And now it has it back in full force, as if paying a penance for having too much fun. 

"We got excited for about 20 minutes when we got the trade," Wade said of acquiring Goran Dragic, a superior playmaker to any of his previous backcourt mates. "And then we got the Bosh news." 

Yes, the Bosh news, the only news that truly mattered Saturday, the news that was entirely expected in light of rumors and reports that had been trickling out since late Thursday, when the team confirmed that Bosh had checked himself into the hospital for testing. The Heat held tight until receiving a full diagnosis, holding firm in not allowing any Bosh-related questions at the 3 p.m. ET press conference introducing Goran and Zoran Dragic.

Then, roughly 90 minutes later, the team released a statement confirming that Bosh was still at the hospital being treated for blood clots on one of his lungs, and while he would miss the rest of the season, "Chris is OK and his prognosis is good." 

Erik Spoelstra elaborated during his pregame press conference, calling Bosh "amazing in terms of his ability to keep perspective," and expressed gratitude for the clarity about the situation, especially the medical consensus that "his health will be restored."

"It's been very emotional for all of us," Spoelstra said. "It's extremely frightening." 

Spoelstra wasn't especially illuminating about Bosh's basketball future, but for what it's worth, Wade was. They've bonded even tighter over the past couple of seasons—before, and especially after, James broke up the Big Three.

Each has supported the other when struggling, but this was a different deal, a much more serious situation. Wade, who visited a weary but upbeat Bosh in the hospital earlier Saturday, said he wouldn't want his friend to rush back this season even if that were possible. When asked if Bosh would return to the court eventually, however, Wade didn't hesitate.

"Yeah, yeah," Wade said. "For sure, for sure. This is not a career-ending thing, this is a season-ending thing because we have two months left in the season. So yeah, we expect him to recover." 

That certainty will make this easier for the Heat organization, at least from here, than Alonzo Mourning's devastating diagnosis did back in 2000. There was more mystery then about focal glomerulosclerosis and what the long-term ramifications would be.

By comparison, there appears to be a clearer course of action for Bosh, after his wife Adrienne pushed him to see the doctor and they caught the clots in time. In fact, while it wasn't widely known, there's someone on Bosh's own roster who has overcome something similar:

Haslem. 

"I told him the most important thing is that they caught it," Haslem said. "Those things can be fatal. They caught it, and right now, basketball is secondary." 

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

Haslem knows from experience. He tore a ligament in his foot early in the 2010-11 season, his first playing with Bosh and James. Following the surgery in late November, he developed clots in his lungs. He watched the Heat's Christmas Day game in the hospital. 

"One of the worst pains I ever had in my life," Haslem said. "They put me on (blood) thinners, taught me how to shoot myself."

Haslem said that by the time his foot injury healed enough for him to return in the second round of the playoffs, in early May, he was already off the blood thinners. Haslem again shared his story with Bosh on Saturday, while recognizing that everyone's body responds differently. 

Everyone was sharing their stories over the past couple of days, as a way to cope and comprehend. Luol Deng shared his with Spoelstra, the coach who was on the other side when Deng, then a Chicago Bull, couldn't compete in a 2013 playoff series against the Heat due to complications from a spinal tap. Deng, who took that test to rule out meningitis and then tried to play, had leakage that caused seizures and asthma. It would take him five months to start running again. 

"When I got sick, and I was in the hospital, I was in so much pain that honestly nothing else mattered but being healthy and being there for my family," Deng said. "As much as we love this game, and we are competitive and we are warriors, sometimes it's a blessing that something like that is found. Because sometimes some people have had that and it wasn't found out until it was too late. It's sad that he will miss the rest of the season, and it's tough on us, because now we've got to shift again what we've got to try to do. But you've just got to thank God they found it."

Rocky Widner/Getty Images

They did, in time. In relation to that, it seems silly to talk about whether the Heat can still find themselves in the playoffs without a player so central to all they do on both ends, even if that player's contributions haven't fully been appreciated by NBA fans.

It seems silly to worry whether Deng, who admitted that he struggled to leave his usual baseline and cutting roles to fill some of Bosh's at the top of the key, can figure out enough to be effective. It seems silly to worry whether Goran Dragic, even after he gets a better feel for the sets than he had after a no-shootaround Saturday, and his play-fast style will work with a team used to plodding.

It seems silly to worry whether Wade, who missed a bushel of bunnies in shooting 8-of-23 on Saturday, can stay on the court consistently enough to push the Heat into the playoffs. 

"For this team, (the goal is) to try to overcome everything we've been through this year, and this is obviously the biggest thing, C.B. out for the season," Wade said. "If we can overcome, and work our way into the playoffs and go from there." 

Sure, that would be seen as a success, in a basketball sense.

But in real-life terms, the only push that mattered was the one Adrienne Bosh gave after returning from a trip with her husband and the Wades to Haiti, as he kept complaining about soreness in his side and shortness of breath.

"He had to be pushed a little bit," Wade said, smiling. "I'm sure his wife did that."

It seems silly to worry at all whether the Heat, without one of their better players, can push the boulder up the hill, even as they encounter plague upon plague, from locusts to landslides.  

"It's been a strange year, but we've all learned to manage through it," Spoelstra said. "I think what you're seeing now is a group that's becoming more resilient every single day because of these adversities." 

All that matters is that Chris Bosh picked the right day to go to the doctor. At least that was meant to be, even if everything else this season, for the Miami Heat, apparently isn't.