Basketball Hall of Famer Chris Bosh is “lucky to be alive” after he woke up “covered in my own blood” during a recent health scare that has given him a new appreciation of life, he told fans Wednesday.
Bosh, 41, the former Miami Heat star center, said he was getting ready to go out with his wife when “the next thing you know, I was on the, I was on the ground.”
“So I woke up covered in my own blood,” Bosh told fans via Instagram. “It was crazy, it was fast, it was instant. There was no warning. I didn’t have any time to prepare for it.”
Bosh didn’t get into the diagnosis or specifics of what caused him such distress. He fought blood clots that cut his great career short.
“I’m lucky to be alive, and I feel great about that,” he said. “And now I’m thinking about how I live my day-to-day life, that’s really it.”
Bosh told fans to cherish every moment of health, urging them to take any leap of faith that could be put off for another day.
“Don’t wait to take action,” he said. “You might be wanting to get a promotion, you might want to try out for the team, you might want to go on that vacation.
“It might be so many different things that people want to do, that we want to do, that we never do,” he continued. “So that’s what I get from all of this. Don’t wait for it. You might want to start a business. Don’t wait, just do it.”
Bosh was the No. 4 overall pick of the Toronto Raptors, out of Georgia Tech, in the 2003 NBA draft. He enjoyed seven productive seasons in Canada, averaging north of 20 points a game in his last five seasons there.
But he’ll best be known for his time in Miami, where he teamed with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to form one of great trios of NBA history.
Those Heat teams won four consecutive Eastern Conference titles from 2011 to 2014, hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy in 2012 and 2013.
Battles with blood clots took Bosh off the court after the 2015-16 season when, at age 31, he was still a highly productive player, averaging 19.1 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game.
Bosh was still hopeful he could return to pro basketball before he formally announced his retirement in early 2019.
Bosh entered the Hall of Fame in the class of 2021, which included NBA greats Paul Pierce, Ben Wallace and Chris Webber; coaches Rick Adelman, Bill Russell and Jay Wright; and WNBA stars Yolanda Griffith and Lauren Jackson.
