Chris Bosh: I Didn’t Quit on the Raptors

by Marcel Mutoni / @marcel_mutoni

After his former GM basically accused him of quitting on the team, Chris Bosh felt compelled to respond and tell his side of the story. And you’ll never believe this, but Bosh totally refutes Bryan Colangelo’s claim.

Talking to the Rogers Sportsnet, a sports television station in Toronto, Chris Bosh says he always played hard as a Raptor.

The AP has the quotes:

After being called out as a quitter by his former general manager, Chris Bosh says he “put his heart and soul” into the Toronto Raptors organization and never gave up on his team. In an interview on Rogers Sportsnet on Thursday night, Bosh responded to allegations made by Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo on Toronto radio station FAN 590 that claimed the All-Star was “checked out” late last season and chose not to play some of the Raptors’ final games.

“I play this game as hard as I can every time I step on the court,” Bosh said. “On the back of my jersey it says ‘Bosh’ … The Boshes are hard workers. We have a lot of pride in what we do, in our jobs and in life.”

Bosh also claimed his decision to leave Toronto was at the end of a long process and not something he had committed to before the offseason. “Everybody thinks, ‘Oh, he was gone as soon as the season was over.’ It was the hardest decision I ever had to make. As different as another country is, it was still home for me. I had been there for seven years.”

Whether or not Bosh “quit” on the Raptors, or if he planned on leaving the team since well before the end of last season is completely irrelevant at this point. What’s done is done.

It’s time for Bryan Colangelo and Chris Bosh to face their new realities, and make the best of those two very different situations.