Chris Bosh Needs To Set the Tone with His Play To Avoid "Soft" Label

Chris Bosh was a guest on ESPN's 1st & 10 on September 14, and he sat directly across from Skip Bayless, one of his biggest public critics.

Never afraid to express his opinion on any topic, Bayless showed no hesitancy in critiquing Bosh's style of play on the court and even whipped out the "Bosh Spice" nickname he had given him long prior to the power forward agreeing to appear as a guest on the show.

After Bayless called Bosh out for his soft play during the regular season, the Miami power forward sat back and smiled, taking all of the criticism in stride and simply brushing it off before moving on to the next topic.

Bosh missed an unbelievable chance to fire back directly in the face of his loudmouth critic, and really missed an opportunity to aid in the reinvention of his image as a feared player on the court.

One of the biggest knocks on Bosh since long before he joined the Heat was that he didn't play with enough aggression on the court and was often missing the "fire in his belly" factor that some other notable names in the game play with on a regular basis.

In his first game with Miami, Bosh didn't exactly come out and set the tone. Playing nearly 38 minutes, Bosh did anything but impress in his debut with eight points on 11 shots (making three of them) to pair with eight rebounds, a block and a steal.

To be fair, Bosh concluded the regular season with averages of 18.7 points and 8.3 rebounds as the third offensive option on his team, and those marks aren't a far cry from his career averages of 20.0 points and 9.2 rebounds.

During the regular season, Bosh had just three games where he registered single digits in the scoring column, but with the way that he was criticized throughout the process, one would be inclined to potentially believe that it was significantly more than that.

It's not so much about Bosh's numbers as it is his style of play.

He often settles for a game that's predicated on a mid-range attack rather than doing the dirty work down low, and fails to assert himself with a thunderous presence on the defensive side of the ball.

Until he learns how to improve those aspects of his game, the criticisms will continue to rain down no matter what he shows in the stat sheet.

Good and bad games come and go throughout the course of a season, but a reputation sticks with someone for a lifetime.

Bosh's reputation has followed him from Toronto all the way down to South Beach, and it's not something that's going to be an easy thing for him to overcome.

It's time for Bosh to speak with his play rather than with words.