The Count Down - 7 more days before the 2010 NBA free agency

With the 2010 NBA free agency just around the corner, everyone is talking about where LeBron James will be playing next year. Rightfully so. There is no doubt that he's the best player in this year's free agency pool. And if he really decides to play for the New York Knicks next year, I'm sure he will not be the only big name free agent playing there. In my mind, however, the biggest free agent this year is not LeBron James but Chris Bosh ...

source: nba.com

Chris Bosh? Yes, Chris Bosh. Let me ask you the question. Among all the big name free agents (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Dirk Nowitzki, Joe Johnson, Carlos Boozer, David Lee, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen), who has the least chance of returning back to his own team? The answer should be pretty obvious. There is only 1 max-contract player on that list who failed to make the playoffs last year. That's Chris Bosh. And he basically has no, zero, nada intention whatsoever of returning to the Toronto Raptors since day 1 ...

During the past season, Bosh tried not to talk about the free agency situation / future with the Toronto Raptors / possibility of playing alongside LeBron James. But we all (including most Raptors fans) knew he is leaving regardless. When he got hurt in that Cleveland game late in the season, we knew right away it was the last and final game that Bosh played in a Raptors uniform. But as an NBA fan, you also got to be excited about the fact that we were going to have a much more entertaining first round playoff series with the Chicago Bulls playing the Cleveland Cavaliers, especially after the December game in which Joakim Noah and LeBron James exchanged words due to some non-stop dancing from the King throughout the entire game ...

Now back to the Chris Bosh's free agency story. The only twist we might have here to prevent Bosh from leaving Toronto is that Bosh isn't willing to leave any money on the table by just walking out and signing elsewhere. And this is exactly the reason why he gave Raptors GM Brian Colangelo his wish list of teams (Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat, and New York Knicks) that he would like to get sign-and-traded to so that he could get the absolute maximum on his new contract. But with the Hedo Turkoglu situation in Toronto, GM Brian Colangelo is not going to take the first sign-and-trade offer he gets for Chris Bosh unless he also has a deal for Hedo Turkoglu with yet another team. He needs to use Bosh to get him the right mix of players, draft picks and contracts in order to use them in return to ship Turkoglu out of town ...

Therefore, for all the Raptors fans out there, you can hate Mr. Hedo nightclub Turkoglu as much as you want. Or you can hate Raptors GM Colangelo for signing Turkoglu last summer. Regardless of the outcome, Turkoglu will play an important role in dictating which team will end up getting Bosh or whether Bosh will actually get his wish and leave Toronto with a big fat contract. Even though it's unlikely, Turkoglu and Colangelo might be the ones that eventually keep Bosh from leaving the city of Toronto as Bosh runs of out options in late August ...