Weekend Heat Check: The rise of Chris Bosh

Chris Bosh's numbers over the past month are starting to prove naysayers wrong. (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

A month ago, it seemed fashionable to knock Chris Bosh. His numbers were down across the board, he was playing soft and the Heat were using him as if he were a run-of-the-mill NBA starting forward. Around Thanksgiving, Bosh’s Player Efficiency Rating stood just south of 18.0 — a solid mark, but hardly one that would get you an All-Star appearance, a $110 million contract and a role in a WWE-style stage to celebrate your talents (and massive ego).

Even more damning: Bosh’s usage rate at that time was about 20 percent, meaning he was using up — via a shot, turnover or drawn foul — about a fifth of Miami’s offensive possessions while on the floor. That’s a usage rate we’d expect from an average NBA starter, not an All-Star whom a team leans on for a ton of production. Bosh’s usage rates in Toronto were consistently in the high 20s, and peaked at 28.7 percent last season. That’s what we expect from a star — and that’s what teams generally need stars to do.

All of this made for much fun at Bosh’s expense early into his Miami campaign:

“Chris Bosh is just third banana to James and Wade.”

“He’s a soft jump-shooter.”

“He can’t handle the pressure in Miami.”

“The Heat should have just kept Michael Beasley!”

But a few urged patience, and now Bosh is proving those people right. Check his numbers these days. His PER is up to 20.0 on the dot — an All-Star-caliber mark. Even more important: His usage rate has jumped to 24 percent, meaning he is grasping a larger role in Miami’s offense. That’s not a ridiculously high mark; Kobe Bryant leads the league at 34.6 percent, and LeBron James is second at 32.0. But of all players that have logged at least 300 minutes, Bosh now ranks 53rd in usage rate, tied with LaMarcus Aldridge and above Paul Pierce, Rudy Gay, Brandon Roy, Steve Nash, Tim Duncan and other big names.

But even that number understates the degree to which Bosh has asserted himself. Over the Heat’s last 17 games — the last month, basically — Bosh’s average per-game usage rate (via Hoopdata.com) is 28.2 percent. In other words, Bosh is using the same percentage of Miami’s offensive possessions as he did in Toronto last season, when he carried one of the heaviest burdens in the league. That is saying something for a guy who shares the court with James and Dwyane Wade.

And more Bosh has been good for the Heat. Bosh has easily the best plus/minus numbers among Miami’s three stars, which is a fancy way of saying the Heat are blowing teams away when Bosh is on the court and struggling (relative to their norm) when Bosh is on the bench. This clearly has something to do with the low quality of Bosh’s backups, but if you watch the games, you know Bosh is helping on both ends.

Bosh may never be what many fans want him to be. He’s never going to justify his contract with monstrous numbers. He’s always going to prefer mid-range jumpers to aggressive takes. He’s not a fearsome player, on either end, and he’ll miss an occasional defensive rotation — a rotation that a better and more confident defender would nail.

And Bosh has indeed become more of a jump-shooter this season. He’s attempting about two fewer shots per game overall compared to last season, but he’s actually taking more long two-point jumpers — 6.0 per game, up from 4.5 last season, according to Hoopdata. On the flip side, Bosh is taking just 5.3 shots per game from within 10 feet of the hoop, down from 9.2 such shots last season. That’s a huge drop, perhaps too big. But it makes some sense when you consider Bosh is paired with James and Wade, two of the best rim-attackers in the league and two guys who can both score and pass on drives to the hoop. Bosh can really only score. Maybe it’s better to leave most of the rim-attacking to the other guys?

Especially because Bosh’s mid-range jumper has huge value to the Heat’s spacing on offense. We saw a great example with about 8:10 left in the third quarter of Miami’s win Thursday in Phoenix, when Bosh set up at the right elbow with Channing Frye on his back. Bosh looked as if he were expecting an entry pass from Carlos Arroyo, who was dribbling on the right wing above the three-point line. But Arroyo (guarded by Nash) instead used Bosh as a screener and dribbled around him toward the right baseline. Nash went under the screen and behind Frye, giving Arroyo a ton of space. Arroyo stopped and buried an easy jumper.

What happened next was notable: Nash raised his arms and shouted at Frye. I can’t be certain why, but my best guess would be that Nash expected some sort of help on the play, perhaps for Frye to slide over toward Arroyo while Nash recovered from the screen. But Frye stuck right to Bosh’s hip, knowing that helping on Arroyo would have exposed Phoenix to an easy Bosh pick-and-pop jumper.

Bosh’s absence early in the fourth quarter of Miami’s loss Monday to Dallas also revealed his value to the Heat’s offense. Miami started the fourth quarter with Joel Anthony and Juwan Howard on the front line and James as the primary ball-handler. Dallas did something very smart against this unit: They assigned Shawn Marion to defend James, and Caron Butler to defend Howard — a much bigger man, obviously. Brendan Haywood took Anthony.

What’s the big deal? By placing Butler on Howard, the Heat effectively removed Howard as a potential pick-and-pop partner for James. Butler and Marion could just switch, leaving Butler as a perfectly reasonable defender on James. That left Anthony as the only plausible screener. The Mavs were less concerned with Anthony in this role, since he has basically zero offensive game. James saw this defense, reluctantly waived away Howard and called Anthony over for pick-and-rolls early in the quarter. And they failed every time. Haywood left Anthony to double James, showing no concern at all for the threat Anthony posed rolling to the hoop. Another Mavs defender would slide down half-heartedly toward Anthony, just to babysit him.

James was forced into four tough jumpers over the first three minutes of the quarter. He made one. Bosh re-entered the game at the 9:00 mark. The Mavs strategy was no longer palatable; Bosh is too dangerous an offensive player to assign to Butler. And so Rick Carlisle sent Dirk Nowitzki back into the game at the 8:53 mark — seven seconds after Bosh checked in.

This is the sort of thing that doesn’t show up in the box score but might impact plus/minus stats. Spacing is important. That’s probably why Matt Bonner has put up better plus/minus numbers than you’d ever expect from a player with such a limited skill set.

Again: None of this is to say Bosh is playing up to his contract or even to his own lofty historic standards. He’s not. But he’s helping in ways some fans might miss, and his quickness and long arms are crucial to the aggressive pick-and-roll defense Miami plays – a strategy that requires big men to jump out on ball-handlers and rush back to their man.

Bosh does that very well, particularly the initial duty of rushing out and stopping a point guard from turning the corner. He’s still learning the second part, he’ll rotate back to the wrong place now and then, and he doesn’t look sure of himself all the time. But he’s getting it, and he should only get better.

Other Heat notes for the weekend:

• Bosh seems to have discovered a nice pick-and-roll chemistry with Mario Chalmers. The two of them carved up the Phoenix defense (I know, I know) for a stretch of the third quarter on Thursday. I’ll be watching this more closely.

• The Heat are now running that “rugby scrum” play, where they send two big men to set a monster double screen for a ball-handler — for James as well as Wade. This play has scary potential, though it would be better if the Heat had more than one big man capable of hitting the mid-range shot consistently.

• Mike Miller is clearly rusty, but you can tell already the Heat expect much more from him than to fill James Jones’ role of standing in the corner and waiting for passes. He has run some pick-and-rolls, and he has been free to pump fake and drive to the hoop when receiving kick out passes from James or Wade. It’s going to be fun watching Miller find his place here.