Chris Bosh talks blood clots and ‘the talk,’ swats staff on ‘Late Late Show’
After being forced to the sidelines in February by blood clots that proved, thankfully, to be only season-ending rather than life-threatening, Chris Bosh continues to work toward his return to the court for the Miami Heat this fall. During an appearance on CBS’ “The Late Late Show with James Corden” on Wednesday, the 10-time All-Star — who’s been working out with teammates in Los Angeles for the past couple of weeks and is set to resume working out with the Heat next week — proclaimed himself “ready to play” after a “great summer.”
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Bosh also opened up about some specifics surrounding his diagnosis and what led to it, according to Heat beat man Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
“I developed blood clots,” Bosh said. “I was sidelined with blood clots. I missed the second half of the season. That’s just something I had to battle back from. I had a pulmonary embolism in my left lung. So I had I’ve been bouncing back, and it’s been a long process, but it’s been great.”
Asked by [fellow guest, comic actor Jason] Sudeikis about the discomfort that led to the diagnosis, Bosh said, “It was kind of a slow-building process and everything, and I felt just severe pain in my left lung. It starts off tight and you really can’t move, and it’s pretty bad.
“But I’m here now.”
That’s tremendous news for a Heat team that sorely missed the 31-year-old big man’s two-way talents down the stretch. Miami played .500 ball after the All-Star Game, an improvement from their 22-30 mark at the break, but far below what Pat Riley, Erik Spoelstra and company had hoped to achieve after importing point guard Goran Dragic from the Phoenix Suns in a trade-deadline deal; the core group of Bosh, Dragic, Dwyane Wade and reclamation-project revelation Hassan Whiteside didn’t share the floor for a single second as Miami finished 37-45, its first trip below .500 and out of the Eastern Conference playoffs since 2008.
With Bosh now healthy and ready to return for Year 2 of his five-year maximum-salaried contract alongside contract-year Whiteside, the re-upped trio of Dragic, Wade and Luol Deng and a refurbished second unit featuring exciting rookie forward Justise Winslow, new additions Amar’e Stoudemire and Gerald Green, incumbent reserves Mario Chalmers and Chris “Birdman” Andersen, and hopefully healthy forward Josh McRoberts, the Heat could have enough firepower to once again re-enter the conversation for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.
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Granted, it might be an awkward conversation; few seem to think anyone’s mounting a deathly serious challenge to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. But it probably won’t be quite as awkward as either the conversation that Corden, Bosh and Sudeikis had about “the talk” — as in, the birds and the bees — or, by the sounds of it, the one that Bosh had with his father many moons ago:
I appreciate Bosh’s attempt to make his father’s “drawings” sound less than deeply upsetting, but now he’s got me wondering what it would have been like had Lt. Ed Devine sat me down at the dining room table with a stack of construction paper and a pack of colored pencils, and whoops every erg of me being is now alternately engulfed in cold chills and searing flames so goodbye forever everyone byeeeeeeeeee
[cough]
When he wasn’t discussing actually frightening physical injuries or potentially damaging emotional ones, Bosh took some of his frustrations out on the staff of “The Late Late Show,” proving once and for all that, when allowed to blatantly goaltend, one large NBA player can dominate 30 non-NBA-playing humans:
Heat fans, no doubt, will be glad to see that Bosh’s rim-protection game (albeit on a lowered rim, against comedy writers) doesn’t seem to have suffered any after his long layoff.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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