Former Heat All-Star Bosh tells young readers how to make it to the NBA

Each chapter is a letter on a trait to be a successful athlete and person

If you are curious what it takes to become an NBA player, former NBA champion and 11-time all-star Chris Bosh has written a fascinating, unconventional memoir entitled Letters to a Young Athlete.

Pat Riley open’s the book with his glowing introduction in which he describes in detail how Bosh turned around the 2013 NBA Finals that the Heat was trailing 3–2.

With 17 seconds left and the Heat trailing by three, Bosh skies for a rebound, and quickly kicks the ball out to three-point specialist Ray Allen, who swishes the game-tying three from the right corner to send the game into overtime. Then, Riley describes how Bosh blocked Danny Green’s shot with the Heat clinging to a one-point lead to salvage the win. The momentum then swung to Miami as they won both games six and seven to take the championship.

“All the players who played in that series had their moments,” Riley writes, “but for anyone who knows anything about winning, and coming up big, you will go down in Miami Heat history as the player who made the greatest sequence of plays ever to assure a championship.”

Huge praises from one of the NBA’s greatest coaches and motivators of all time.

Each chapter is like a separate letter to the reader (or young athlete) that challenges them as far as things they can do physically, mentally, and emotionally to become a better player.

One of my favorite parts of the book is when Bosh tells the story of how a high-school coach asked him, “What do you want to do with this, Chris?” Meaning, why are you out here and what is your goal in basketball.

Bosh said this question challenged him and steered him the rest of his life. He believes all young athletes should ask themselves what is their purpose for going out for and being a part of a team.

Bosh stresses how it needs to be deeper than being a part of a team, winning a championship, or “because people will look up to me.”

Bosh emphasized that he does it for the love of the game. And another chapter talks all about the importance of having the hunger, desire, and dedication to want to be an athlete at the next level.

In another chapter, he stressed the importance of giving everything you got. Every single practice. He emphasized how many times athletes think they are tired, but they still have plenty more in the tank. He said many young athletes do not really truly know what it means to be tired.

“It’s there, at that outer limits of your endurance, where you find out what you’re really made of. And when it’s game time, that work pays off,” Bosh writes.

Bosh talks about the challenges of coming to the Miami Heat where he joined LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to form “The Big Three,” and discuss both the incredibly high expectations as well as writing about how he had to truly learn to be a team player with a certain role since he wasn’t going to be the top-scoring superstar that he was in Toronto with the Raptors.

Having a positive attitude, pushing your ego aside, and developing a mature The book really can apply to anyone and how to achieve a goal.

I also like how Bosh mentioned numerous other athletes in other sports as examples to how they succeeded like football player Richard Sherman, and Bosh emphasizes the importance of reading and having other interests besides basketball and basing his book Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, Bosh also quotes poetry that inspired him.

In the latter chapters, Bosh talks candidly about the freak medical condition — blood clots are known as deep vein thrombosis —that ended his career suddenly when he was only 34 years old.

Even this horrific experience Bosh puts a positive spin on writing, “The end of one journey sets up the beginning of another,” and talks about numerous professional athletes who have gone on to do other great things (like Bill Bradley becoming a U.S. Senator).

Bosh talks about the incredible experience he had of having his famous Heat number one retired in the rafters, but said it was unusual.

“(Pat) Riley spoke not of the shots that I hit or the points I put on the boards. He took the time to memorize the final seconds of Game 6 in the 2013 NBA Finals … Pat called (the pass to Ray Allen) the biggest assist in the history of the franchise,”

This book is a big assist to young athletes — or for anyone — to become better at the chosen field. It’s a fun, easy read with lots of great advice, inspiring stories, and things that readers — young and old — can relate to.

Thanks for reading

Tagging a few sports-reading buddies: Scot Butwell, Scott Younkin, Jameson Steward, Deborah Camp, MarkfromBoston 🐾🍻, Lu Skerdoo, Sreese, Gerald Sturgill, Nikki Lives, Oscar Rhea. Frank Priegue, J.R. Spiers, Adelina Vasile, Lisa's Desk Chat.

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