Jersey retirement is for those nights Bosh won’t have
Pat Riley loves his past players, welcomes them, celebrates them, even overlooks any distant disputes and oversells their Heat time to a fault, if you find fault in that. The Heat’s Godfather, so ruthless in the moment, is a romantic about yesterday. So when Riley announced Chris Bosh’s No. 1 jersey was being retired, the purist police rushed to point out Bosh’s six Heat years and third-fiddle status on The Big Three didn’t merit the reward. Which they don’t. They can’t.
That misses the necessary point, too. This isn’t just a jersey retirement for Bosh’s great Heat run. It’s a night for all those nights he never got. It’s an olive branch to brush away any rancor made when the Heat effectively retired him for his own benefit.
Bosh’s jersey retirement is also, in some form, a nod to LeBron James. Riley, at 72, prefers to tie up loose ends and err on the side of celebration even if that means overlooking ugly details.
But time will allow what happened in that Vegas exit interview between Riley and LeBron to stay in Vegas. Five more years? Ten more? No. 6 goes in the rafters, if No. 1 is. (Dwyane Wade’s No. 3 is a given.)
If Riley is guilty of anything besides being a romantic with Tuesday, it’s a desire to microwave history in the Heat rafters. Gordon Hayward said the history of the Boston Celtics meant something in his decision. Believe it if youwant. The current Celtics swayed him much more, no doubt.
But Riley is so loose with retiring numbers that Bosh might be the most deserving jersey retiring for the Heat after Alonzo Mourning. Michael Jordan’s Bulls jersey is in the rafters, for whatever reason. So is DanMarino’s Dolphins jersey.
If Bosh’s six years with two rings defies traditional standards, then so did Tim