Chris Bosh: 'I plan to keep my options open as a player'

Last summer, the Miami Heat officially parted ways with former All-Star big man Chris Bosh. He was waived on July 4, weeks after he and the team came to a final agreement on how to part ways and more than a year since his last NBA appearance because of blood-clot issues. His departure gave the Heat access to $26.8 million in salary-cap space for next season.

Bosh, who is expected to have his No. 1 retired by the Heat at some point, was on NBA TV’s Players Only last night and made it clear he wants to stay around the game in some form.

“I’m always going to be around the game of basketball,” Bosh said. “I plan to keep my options open as a player moving forward, but that’s not coaching. Maybe front office work, working with teams and spreading the game, maybe teaching the game to young people, that’s something that’s a very big passion.”

Bosh has a desire to pass along how to play without the ball and would ideally like to work with players who may not be the top option on their team.

“I would want to work with guys that maybe aren’t starters, guys that are the fourth or fifth option,” Bosh said. “To be honest, I’m looking at today’s game and I put myself in that position and how I would benefit from the faster basketball, more threes, catch-and-go opportunities, attacking the paint with more space, that’s what kind of gets me juiced up and riled up when I watch today’s game. I would really want to teach someone how to function without having to have plays called for you.”

Back in 2014, Bosh signed a five-year deal to stay with the Heat — shortly after LeBron James left Miami for a return to Cleveland. James, Bosh and Dwyane Wade went to the NBA Finals in all four of their seasons together in Miami, winning titles in 2012 and 2013.

Bosh’s last Miami deal was worth $118 million. For that, he was only able to play in 97 games.

He appeared in 44 games in 2014-15, his season ending at the All-Star break when the first known clot episode started. A year later, he played in 53 games and – in an eerie similarity – his season again ended at All-Star weekend, when another clot was found shortly after he landed in Toronto for the 2016 All-Star Game.

Bosh hasn’t played since, missing Miami’s last 125 games. Overall, he played 13 NBA seasons, seven with Toronto and then six with Miami. He was part of Miami’s massive free-agent haul in 2010, where the Heat not only kept Wade but landed James to form something that team president Pat Riley felt could turn into something dynastic. He averaged 19.2 points and 8.5 rebounds in his career.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.