If the Knicks can beat Chris Bosh tonight at the Garden, maybe he will want to join them.
If they say please, or pretty please. Team president Donnie Walsh is serious about attaching the Knicks to a star, even if, in a UStream video last summer, Bosh found a recruiting plea from a Knicks fan to whom he was awarding a contest prize of autographed sneakers to be uproariously funny.
Until now, so has been the idea of Bosh playing an entire NBA season. This season Bosh has played every game, which along with his 24 points per game, 11 rebounds, 52 percent shooting and the slow recuperation of Boston's Kevin Garnett have made the Toronto power forward probably the top power forward in the NBA.
Of the four guys (including LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Joe Johnson) generating the most drooling out of the potentially NBA landscape-altering free agent class of 2010, Bosh is losing ranking as the most likely to disappoint.
"He played pretty well last year too, but yeah I would say he has taken another step up," said coach Mike D'Antoni, no implication intended that New York would represent a corresponding step up in basketball profile from Toronto.
Many believe Bosh, having endured seven years of hockey weather, will not want to take any steps in galoshes and is on his way to sunny Dallas, Phoenix or most likely Miami. That would mean Wade wouldn't have to go anywhere to have a team that can win him another NBA championship.
Nevertheless, Bosh has not lifted the Raptors past 19-20 this season, nor past the first round in two tries. Though owner Jim Dolan's money would buy many beautiful woolen scarves and a good warm coat, Bosh, in coming to the Knicks, would be joining basically the same kind of perimeter shooting, bottom-tiered playoff team that he would be leaving.
There also is the question of how much better Bosh is than the emergent David Lee, an increasingly devilish offensive threat whom the Knicks already know and are learning to love more by the day.
After scoring the Knicks' final four points in their energizing 93-92 squeaker over Philadelphia Wednesday night, Lee is hustling back from his grandfather's funeral in St. Louis mostly to try to get a win against a team tenuously holding one of the seemingly-attainable Eastern Conference playoff spots. Lee also has three more games against Toronto after this one with which to potentially outplay Bosh and build his own free-agent value this summer.
After the UStream video, Bosh subsequently tweeted that he laughs at any unauthorized invitation to sign up anywhere and wasn't meaning to ridicule our team or city. Whatever, the Knicks are no longer playing knee-slapping basketball.
As long as Bosh remains in Toronto -- and it might be just until the trading deadline -- Bosh cannot giggle at this growing threat to the Raptors' playoff spot. It is real and has a chance to get more real during the Knicks' home-and-home series against struggling Detroit that follows tonight's game.
After the Lakers and Dallas visit next week, the Raptors follow Minnesota into the Garden and the Knicks go to Toronto on Jan. 28. Seeing Bosh this often, will give the Knicks opportunities to help him keep a straight face whenever he thinks of them.
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