It remains unclear whether Chris Bosh can ever play in the NBA again. After a sudden scare with a blood clot in his lungs following the 2015 All-Star game, Bosh has experienced circumstances that leave his entire NBA future shrouded in doubt.
Bosh started out playing in the 2015-16 season, but a calf injury compounded with another blood clot — this one in his leg — had doctors all but forcing him to sit out the rest of the season. When he can return, or if he can even return, remains a mystery.
“I think his doctors and our doctors are constantly, or moreso now than ever, communicating,” Heat executive Pat Riley recently said. “I know what Chris wants. I know he wants to play. And obviously we would be open to that, but this is still a very fluid situation.”
“It’s a sensitive, complicated situation,” Riley went on.
Internal blood clots are a medical issue that go beyond the usual wear and bodily tear of NBA players, and of athletes in general. Bosh’s history with this issue does not exactly forecast what his body will do from here out, but it does make clear that he is taking a pretty huge risk whenever he decides to resume his playing career.
This is an extremely simplified version of the issue, but it’s the Catch-22 he and Heat are facing now: If he doesn’t take blood thinners, there’s a chance a clot in his brain or elsewhere could kill him, and he wouldn’t know it was coming. But if he takes blood thinners, he can’t play NBA basketball because they severely deplete the person taking them.
We wish him the best, but playing isn’t worth jeopardizing your life.
(via ESPN)
