Toronto General Manager Bryan Colangelo said Chris Bosh “checked out” at the end of his time in Toronto, when the Chicago Bulls caught the fading Raptors for the eighth playoff spot.
Chris Bosh went on Rogers Sportsnet Thursday and fired back, saying he “put his heart and soul” into the Raptors and that what Colangelo said was not true (as reported by Associated Press).
“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...”
“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.”
The other comment of Bosh’s when he first got to Miami that stirred passions north of the border is when he said Toronto was “different.” Bosh defended that saying it was not meant as an insult.
“Toronto is different,” he said. “For one, it’s a different country. If you don’t know you’re in a different country when you land then something is wrong with your senses. That’s not to say that Toronto is not a great metropolitan city. It is a fantastic city.
“Different is not bad. I’m different. That doesn’t make me bad.”