Chris Bosh was a member of the National Honor Society before he was a member of the National Basketball Association. He knew how to use a slide rule before he perfected his slidestep. And Chris was a pro in the classroom long before he began schooling pro opponents. In short, he was always one of those kids who could do anyhting he set his mind to, or be anything he wanted to be. The question in Canada is, can he be the player Toronto Raptor fans have been waiting for since 1995? This is his story…

GROWING UP

Christopher Wesson Bosh was born on March 2, 1984 in Dallas, Texas, to Freida and Noel Bosh. (Click here for today's sports birthdays.) A brother, Joel, came along two years later. Freida was a computer-savvy systems analyst, while Noel was a plumbing engineer who helped design apartment and office buildings. Both parents were good at the details and saw the big picture, too. This rubbed off on Chris, who was active and curious as a pre-schooler.

What Chris’s parents found intriguing was that these two qualities seemed to be connected—Chris wanted to know how to do things (the fastest way to run, the best way to throw) and was interested in the different things he could make his body do. The Boshes enrolled him in karate and gymnastics classes, and he excelled in both. A Nerf hoop fostered his love of basketball.

Chris and Joel were big for their ages (Freida and Noel both stood taller than six feet) and they played Nerf so hard that they soon destroyed the door to their room. Noel decided it was time for the boys to take it outside. He put up a backyard hoop, and the rest was history.

Chris’s first brush with basketball fame came in the lobby of a Dallas hotel when he was seven or eight. He spotted one of his favorite players, John Salley of the Pistons. Salley spent some time talking to Chris and gave him an autograph. Over the years, the youngster became a big fan of the Detroit forward and followed his long career. He especially appreciated how comfortable Salley seemed off the court, and how intelligent he was when he appeared on TV.

Chris was no slouch in the brains department himself. He was a lightning-fast learner, and also had a knack for analyzing what made things work. One of the top students in his elementary school, he earned praise from teachers and respect from his fellow students. It probably didn’t hurt that Chris was also lanky, strong, and coordinated, which made him the best baller in his class. He had no trouble developing his hoops skills at the same time he was growing intellectually. And if a bad test score or grade came home, Freida and Noel let him know that playing basketball was a privilege, no matter how good he was becoming.

The Boshes expected Chris would be tall, but he wanted to know just how tall. With his sights set on earning a college scholarship, he wanted to know if he should be thinking guard, forward or center. Several doctors evaluated him and determined that he would stop growing at around 6-6. So he began to think about the skills needed by a swingman. Still, the news was a little disappointing, because his favorite player was Kevin Garnett of the Minnesota Timberwolves. He had always wanted to be a power forward like KG.

Basketball became more of a reality when Chris reached the 6-7 mark—as a sophomore at Lincoln High School. He continued to sprout to 6-10, but his feet stopped growing around size 13, allowing him to retain the quickness he had developed as a smaller player. Chris played a lot on the varsity as a freshman, but became a starter—and the team’s best player—when Leonard Bishop was hired to coach Lincoln in his sophomore year. Bishop had first seen Chris the year before and was awestruck.

Meanwhile, Chris contimued to be an excellent student, scoring well enough on standardized tests to become a member of the National Honor Society. He excelled where science and math met the creative arts, learning how to build web sites and the basics of graphic design. In fact, before he settled on pursuing a basketball career, Chris dreamed of being a graphic artist.

Chris blossomed under Bishop, who handed his players a sheet of paper each week called Study the Game, which targeted areas in which they could improve. The sophomore was in heaven. He created a binder for his Study the Game sheets and reviewed them constantly.

Along with fellow second-year star Bryan Hopkins, Chris made Lincoln the most dangerous up-and-coming team in Dallas. The soph was starting to use the moves he picked up from watching Garnett on TV—the up-fake, the jab, the swing-through—and they were working. Chris would get the ball in the post and his opponents would have no idea what to expect. He could nail turnarounds and fadeaways, or wheel to face his defender and break him down off the dribble. This was impressive stuff for a 15-year-old.

As a junior, Chris led his team to the state tournament, and they advanced to the semifinal. He played poorly in the first half and spent much of the game on the bench in foul trouble. He felt personally responsible when Lincoln lost by two points, and vowed this would not happen again.

Chris played the 2001-02 season like a young man possessed. He did whatever the team needed whenever it needed it—but also kept his teammates in the game at both ends. He was a dominant force without dominating the other Lincoln players. The numbers tell the story—when the dust settled on Chris’s senior season, he had led Lincoln High to a perfect 40-0 record and the state championship. Though he averaged a relatively modest 20 points and 14 rebounds, Chris was still was a no-brainer choice as Texas’s “Mr. Basketball.” AParade first-team All-American, he was also selected to play in the McDonald’s All-Star Game.

ON THE RISE

With his stellar grades and advanced skills, Chris was on a lot of recruiting lists. Florida and Memphis launched all-out efforts to sign him, but it was Paul Hewitt, coach of the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets, who made the best impression. Chris felt Hewitt would look out for his best interests, and respect his aspirations to one day play pro ball. He also liked Tech’s transition offense. It didn’t hurt that a cousin and aunt had attended the school and loved it—or that John Salley was a Tech alum.

When Chris enrolled at Georgia Tech, he fully intended to stay the full four years. The educational component of his basketball scholarship was tremendously important to him. But he became so good, so fast his freshman year, that he surprised even himself. Chris netted 26 points in his first college game. By the end of the year, he was hitting for 15 to 20 a night, snatching double-digit rebounds, and swatting a couple of shots a game. He was also hitting on half his shots from beyond the arc.

Chris finished the 2002-03 season with an average of 15.9 points and nine boards per game, and had the highest field goal percentage in the ACC (56.0 %) and the most blocks with 67. He was also second in the league in rebounding. Still, it was not until the end of the ACC schedule that he began believing what he had heard for most of the season—that he was good enough to go in the first round of the NBA Draft.

Tech was formidable at home, but atrocious on the road, going 16-15 and 7-9 in the ACC. Though losing on the road in front of hostile crowds is an unpleasant experience, it gave Chris a taste of what life might be like some day in the pros. The Yellowjackets were passed over for an NCAA bid, but went to the NIT, where they played well and scored an impressive win over Texas before bowing out. Chris opened a lot of eyes in that game, hitting for 19 points and grabbing 12 boards.

After the season, Chris sat down with Hewitt and asked him whether the lottery pick talk was hype or for real. He couldn’t believe it when his coach stated that he would probably go somewhere between #4 and #8. Chris weighed the pros and cons of staying and going, but in the end, he felt the chance to be a Top 5 NBA pick was too good to pass up.

With the draft approaching, Chris began to look at potential new addresses. If Hewitt was right and he went as high as fourth, he would begin his pro career north of the border. The Raptors were sitting at #4 behind the Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons and Denver Nuggets. They were thinking about Chris and a couple of other forwards, including Nick Collison of Kansas. Both players worked out for Toronto and looked great. When GM Glen Grunwald asked them to play a little one-on-one, the potential of Chris’s game was obvious to everyone. Collison, who was drafted by the Seattle Supersonics and projected to be a steady pro, simply wasn’t in the same class.

As expected, Cleveland grabbed LeBron James with the top pick, the Nuggets took Carmelo Anthony at #2, and Detroit tabbed Darko Milicic, who would become known as the “human victory cigar,” as #3. Toronto selected Chris. Almost immediately, other NBA teams started making offers for him. They knew Toronto needed a veteran scorer, but Grunwald turned everyone down—despite pressure to make a trade from none other than Vince Carter, the team’s star. It was nothing against Chris; Carter simply wanted a little help that year.

Life as a professional player was totally new to Chris, who was just 19. He did not have an entourage, so he asked his cousin Adriene Mayes if she would share an apartment with him in Toronto. Mayes had a masters in engineering, and was someone Chris looked up to. She took care of the finances and household chores, and gave Chris someone he trusted and could to talk to. Mayes also helped to start the Chris Bosh Foundation, which helps underprivileged children in the Toronto area.

Expectations for Chris were high as the 2003-04 campaign got under way. But with Carter as the team’s marquee player, Chris would not be asked to do much more than make the most of whatever minutes coach Kevin O’Neill gave him. Chris’s main objective was to add some beef to his 6-10, 210-pound frame. Over the summer, he had gone on a 5,000-calorie-a-day diet and got into a lifting regimen to ensure that any bulk he added went to the right places. He also steered clear of the Big Macs and other junk food rookies tend to put into their bodies. Over the next two seasons, he would gain 30 pounds, almost all of it muscle.

The Raptor team Chris joined had plenty of brawn, but little in the way of scoring punch. Carter was option A, B and C, and there was no option D. Early in the year, Toronto made a deal to remedy this situation, trading center Antonio Davis and power forward Jerome Williams to the Indiana Pacers for a couple of scorers—guard Jalen Rose and forward Donyell Marshall. This gave the Raptors some instant offense, while the hole left by the departing players became Chris’s job to fill. Congratulations, kid, you’re an NBA center!

Chris handled this task with enthusiasm and maturity. He absorbed a fearsome pounding on defense, but he held his own when the Raptors had the ball. The addition of Marshall, an excellent three-point shooter, forced opposing teams to send a big man out to the perimeter, leaving space for Carter and Rose to slash, and for Chris to work on his post-up moves. His nifty footwork also made him a natural for working high pick and rolls with guards Carter, Rose and Alvin Williams.

Chris got his touches and his shots, and finished the season withe at 11.5 points and 7.4 rebounds a night. The Raptors went 33-49 and missed the playoffs, but there seemed to be some hope for a turnaround.

The 2004-05 season found the team with a new coach, Sam Mitchell, a new GM, Bob Babcock, and without Williams, who sat out the year with a bad knee. The front office was not happy with how things were developing early in the season. Carter was disgruntled and itching to leave Canada. Chris was getting hammered at center. And the rest of the team just wasn’t playing like a team.

The Raptors knew Chris had worked hard over the summer. He surprised many defenders by going right on the dribble, and surprised even more by shooting righthanded. It was wrong to expect him to continue to develop playing out of position and in a potentially toxic clubhouse situation. On December 17, Toronto made a deal with the Nets that put Carter in a New Jersey uniform and brought widebodies Aaron Williams and Eric Williams across the border.

The trade coincided with the emergence of center Loren Woods, signed over the summer, which freed Chris from the purgatory of defending NBA centers. He spent the rest of the year playing against 3s and 4s, tuning up his perimeter defense in the process.

MAKING HIS MARK

Toronto fans had wanted Carter to be their knight in shining armor, but he always seemed to have one foot out the door. They lamented the day they let Tracy McGrady get away. Now all eyes were focused on Chris. Like it or not, he would carry the burden of being the Raptors’ franchise player. The 20-year-old was fine with that. He felt the pressure and accepted it, but was determined not to rush his own development.

After the calendar flipped to January, Chris raised his game to another level. He notched nine consecutive double-doubles, establishing a new franchise record. The Raptors sputtered somewhat trying to get used to life without Vince. By season’s end, however, they had come together as a team, and showed that a playoff berth was a future possibility.

They finished 33-49 again, and Chris led the team with 3,017 minutes played, 542 free throws made, 718 rebounds, and 113 blocks. His 16.8 points per game ranked second behind Jalen Rose, who averaged 18.5.

Chris took another important step toward stardom with the start of the 2005-06 season. With the Raptors unable to land a big-name free agent, he became Toronto’s leader and go-to guy. The club seemed content to slowly build around him. Management plugged holes where needed, and and waited to overhaul the roster until the opportunity to pull off a blockbuster move presented itself.

Meanwhile, Chris continued to polish his game. He was good for a double-double almost every night, and as the season approached the halfway point, he was the only member of the NBA’s Top 10 scorers making more than half his shots. He was also the only man among them who could, would and did play four of the five positions on the court, logging big minutes at center once again. Unfortunately, the Raptors were still losing around two games for every one they won.

Chris may soon become a figure of national importance. Canada has already lost one NBA team, one MLB team, and a bunch of hockey teams. If Chris can realize his immense potential—and stays in Toronto—he could reenergize Canadian sports. Until then, he will continue to be a class act…as he schools the rest of the league in the fine art of basketball.

CHRIS THE PLAYER

No young player in the NBA uses his intellect to greater advantage than Chris. He can watch tape of an opponent for an hour and memorize every move, then start working on ways to defend and beat him. He rarely faces an opponent without already having a book on his tendencies.

Chris has an offensive game well-suited for the NBA. If his shot is working, he’ll score consistently from 12 to 15 feet. If not, he’ll take it to the rack. And he is devilishly good in transition. At an age when many players are just coming into the NBA, Chris already has an impressive offensive repertoire. He can post-up or dribble-drive, and he is learning to pass out of the double-teams he is seeing with increasing frequency.

On defense, Chris’s hours in the video room have paid huge dividends. He has learned the tendencies of troublesome outside-shooting power guys like Dirk Nowitzki and now happily chases them all night if he has to. He can also guard the league’s most elusive swingmen when necessary. And of course, as Chris adds more mass, he is getting better and better at banging inside.

Chris’s footwork is at a superstar-level for his position, and should serve him well as he expands his game. His dedication and maturity have already made him a leader in Toronto. Chris’s greatest plus? Maybe it is that he doesn’t seem to have any major minuses. If there is a soft spot in his game, he works on improving. If he makes a mistake, he learns from it.

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