It’s fitting that the last image of Chris Bosh in a Toronto Raptors uniform fans will ever see was of the 6-10 power forward writhing in pain on the floor with a fractured nose and upper jaw, blood pouring from his face. After all, Bosh and Toronto fans have been headed for an ugly breakup for a long time now and someone was bound to get hurt.

Bosh is, of course, now officially an ex-Raptor. Not that I’ve talked to him about it or anything, but I’d say the likelihood of him returning to Toronto next season can be found on the back of his jersey — about 4%. I mean, just ask yourself: If you were Chris Bosh, would you stay?

Bosh has been Roy Halladay-esque since the Raptors season ended last Wednesday with a decisive victory over the New York Knicks which gave the team the distinction of finishing one game out of the playoffs instead of two. He’s answered all the questions, said he likes the city, insisted he hasn’t made up his mind and doesn’t know what the future holds, etc.  And, like Halladay, he said he wants to win — a prospect that isn’t particularly realistic in Southern Ontario at the moment. It took Halladay 11 seasons before he figured out it wasn’t going to happen in Toronto, forcing the Blue Jays to ship him to Philadelphia where he could hardly contain his excitement to have a chance at playing in the playoffs.
But give Bosh credit, he did lay out the factors that could make him consider returning. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the Raptors all-time leading rebounder and scorer said GM Bryan Colangelo must make changes to the current roster, convince ownership to spend in excess of the NBA’s luxury tax threshold and acquire an all-star player for him to play with. Fortunately, he stopped short of demanding the Air Canada Centre be renamed Chris Bosh Place. It’s noble of Bosh to give his boss advice on how to do his job — noble and severely misguided.

Don’t you think Colangelo would have done all of that by now if he could? Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment — who own the Raptors, the Maple Leafs, the Air Canada Centre, several condominiums and the wallets of Toronto sports fans — are certainly far from cash-strapped. If there was a premier free agent available who could elevate Toronto to a playoff team but force the Raptors to spend into the luxury-tax, surely Colangelo and MLSE would have brought him in by now. Playoff games in Toronto equal a big pay day, of course, and MLSE wouldn’t be silly enough to turn that down.

But there’s smart spending and there’s silly spending. And there have been few instances on the open market recently where it would make logical sense for the Raptors to open the vault to bring in talent. Especially in the NBA, you do not want to get weighed down by a mediocre player with a long, expensive contract.  Hedo Turkoglu immediately comes to mind.

So what else do you want, Chris? An all-star player to play with? Well, the problem is there just aren’t that many all stars in the league. At this year’s NBA all star game there were a total of 28 players — 10 starters and 18 reserves. Meanwhile, just six teams had more than one representative at the game — Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, LA Lakers and Phoenix. A veritable who’s who of NBA playoff basketball year after year. There just aren’t that many teams with more than one all star and they happen to be the best of the best in the league — something the Raptors can only dream of.

Bosh is suggesting the Raptors put themselves in that group by acquiring another all-star caliber player, but he’s assuming that an all star would want to come and play in Toronto, a Canadian city with few opportunities for endorsements or American television exposure. Is it really a coincidence that Bosh — arguably the most underrated, under-appreciated and under-talked-about player in the league — just so happens to play in the oft-forgotten Northern market?

Sure, it’d be nice to bring in Lebron James or Dwyane Wade this off-season, but even the most naïve Raptor fan knows that’s wholly unrealistic. Do you really think Colangelo has been turning down opportunities to sign players of that caliber?

Bosh is as good as gone, which is fine. The Raptors will survive, rebuild around Turkoglu and Andrea Bargnani and hope to sneak into eighth place in the graveyard that is the Eastern Conference next year. But Bosh’s franchise advice is completely impractical and can also been seen as a shot at Colangelo’s team-building philosophy of recent years. Building a successful basketball team in Toronto is enough of a challenge — certainly Colangelo could do without Bosh’s advice.