Bold Predictions for Chris Bosh's 2014 NBA Season
With LeBron James returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers this summer, Chris Bosh enters the 2014-15 NBA season as the Miami Heat's No. 1 option.
Bosh hasn't held such a role since the 2009-10 season when he was a member of the Toronto Raptors.
While Bosh had success as "the guy" from an individual production standpoint, he was never able to lead the Raptors out of the first round of the playoffs.
Bosh has a real opportunity this upcoming season to prove the many naysayers wrong, that he's capable of both leading a team to success and stuffing the stat sheet.
Let's find out if he'll do so by making some bold predictions.
Bosh averages at least 22 points per game
Bosh averaged just 16.2 points per game this past season but don't let that number deceive you into thinking the big man won't break out offensively in 2014-15.
Bosh was serving as the clear-cut No. 3 option in Miami in 2013-14, and the three seasons that preceded it. Bosh's usage rate last season was 20.0, compared to 25.9 in his final season in Toronto.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra rarely ran plays for Bosh these past few years.
That won't be the case this season, with Bosh working as the focal point of the offense.
The Heat center won't hit a 25.9 usage rate with talented players such as Dwyane Wade and Luol Deng surrounding him, but he also won't be anywhere near the 20.0 rate he posted last year.
Simply as a result of increased touches and his great skill, Bosh will make a huge jump offensively in 2014-15.
Bosh averages at least eight rebounds per game
Bosh has seen his rebounds per game decline in each year since posting 10.8 rebounds per game in his final Raptors season. The 30-year-old was down to just 6.6 per game in 2013-14.
But count on Bosh reversing that trend this season.
The Heat have been the NBA's worst rebounding team in each of the past two years. That was, in part, by design. Miami was willing to sacrifice boards, knowing it could still contend for championships because of its strengths in other areas.
However, with James gone, Miami doesn't have those advantages to the extent it used to. The Heat will have to place a greater emphasis on rebounding the ball and that will start with its center, Bosh.
CB won't get back to his double-digit per game rebounding days simply because he plays out of the paint much more than he used to these days but expect to see Bosh crash the glass more in 2014-15 than he has in the past four years.
Bosh leads the Heat to a No. 3 seed in Eastern Conference
The Heat are going to surprise some people this year with Bosh perhaps being the principle reason why.
He might not have been skilled enough to lead a top team when he was with the Raptors, but he is now. Bosh's offensive game has grown tremendously in the past four years and now serves as a player that can score from just about every area of the court.
Bosh has also improved significantly on the defensive end in the past few years, which is another element of his game that will help Miami survive in a post-LeBron world.
With Bosh leading the way, alongside Wade, Deng, Mario Chalmers and others, the Heat will field a very competitive lineup.
Miami might be done winning championships for right now, but a No. 3 seed in the East and a trip to the conference finals is well within reach.
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