Chris Bosh is having his best year as a pro and is the main reason why the Raptors are five games above .500 and hold a 4.5 game lead over the New Jersey Nets in the Atlantic Division. But is he MVP caliber? If you look at other players around the league and what they mean to their respective teams statistically Bosh falls into the same category as Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Dwayne Wade, Gilbert Arenas, and Lebron James. All of these players are MVP’s to their own teams and put up amazing individual stats and Bosh is no exception.It is hard to define the Most Valuable Player in the NBA. In the NHL if you lead the league in points and your team makes the playoffs you are pretty much a shoe in for the award (see Joe Thorton) and in Major League Baseball you can lead the league in home runs, but fail to make the playoffs and still win the MVP (see Ryan Howard). As for the NBA it is the player who makes his teammates better all around players is usually the winner of the award. When Shaq won MVP in the 1999-00 season in LA opposing teams would throw double or triple teams at him, which would free up Kobe Bryant and make his job a lot easier. All Steve Nash the past two seasons was have his teammate’s average career numbers. What Bosh brings to the floor every night is passion and a winning attitude that has really rubbed off on the rest of the team. If you look closer at his numbers you’ll find that out of all the players I mentioned above only three average a double-double, one being reigning 2 time MVP Steve Nash, another former 2 time MVP Tim Duncan and the other Chris Bosh.

It’s hard not to give Bosh consideration based on his numbers and what he means to the Toronto Raptors, but I feel he is a few years away from any real consideration and he’ll need to lead the Raptors to some playoff success. Look on the bright side Raptor fans, Bosh is going to turn 23 this year and will be a Raptor for the next 3 seasons. Given time and the right players around him, I think you’ll see CB4 and MVP in the future.

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