By Andy Charles

I know it has been amazing to watch some of Chris Bosh’s play so far in the early days of the NBA season, but it really does come with a touch of sadness that this might just be his last year as a Raptor.

It would be too easy to say that Bosh’s performances are down to the money he can expect to get at the end of the season when he becomes a free agent, but there is no way Toronto will be able to afford him, even if he wanted to stay, if he keeps putting up these numbers.

Of course, the Raptors could go to the playoffs this season, have a lot of success, and even win the NBA finals, but even that would be no guarantee that the sharp-shooting, big rebounding forward would stay at the Air Canada Center.

The market for free agents at the end of this season will be dominated by the agency group of Henry Thomas and Leon Rose, who control the rights to not only Bosh but prized commodities in LeBron James and Dwyane Wade – I’m guessing you might have heard of those two guys as well.

Plenty of teams have made trades over the past two seasons just to get expiring contracts for 2010 and open up plenty of cap space, plus there is the fact that Cleveland and Miami are losing their big stars (possibly) and could, if they manage to persuade them to return, both add Bosh as a second big piece.

Well, so far he is doing himself no harm in a market which could be decreasing financially because of the cash troubles a number of franchises are suffering.

After five games, Bosh stands on 29.5 points per game, good enough for fifth in the league behind some well-known names and Kevin Martin, and 13 rebounds a game which is beaten only by the streaky Gerald Wallace.

Sure, with Andrea Bargnani and Hedo Turkoglu alongside him and Jose Calderon running the show, it’s not as if he is a one-man team but were the Raptors to lose him in free agency he would be one of the toughest players to replace as far as NBA Picks go, in the whole of the sport.

Would there be a chance of a pseudo home-town discount? Unlikely I’d think given some of the markets on offer to him and the amount of money that will be thrown at him. Averaging 25 points and 12 rebounds at the end of the season would certainly put him not as far behind D-Wade and LeBron as you might have expected at the start of November.

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