Image via Complex Original
Chris Bosh turns 30 today, and on behalf of everyone at Complex, we wish him the best. Or at least better than his birthday last year, when his house was robbed of nearly $500,000 of items while he was out celebrating. He's a year wiser now, and hopefully he's learned that it's not smart to have $500,000 worth of anything lying around.
A wiser Bosh means a more eclectic Bosh, which we certainly welcome. Bosh gets a lot of shit for his dinosaur-like appearance and general softness, but beneath those headlines is a man who's easily one of the NBA's most interesting figures. He's cerebral, cultured, and has a nice weird streak about him—who else in the NBA loves jazz and computer coding, but also owns the league's most expensive home and has a self-made documentary about himself? And those aren't even the most bizarre facts in 30 Things You Didn't Know About Chris Bosh in GIFs.
His first car was a $50,000 Chevy Avalanche.
Not the flashiest choice for someone whose first NBA contract was worth $9.3 million, but his explanation for the purchase was sound: "I always told myself that's what I wanted to buy. So that's what I bought."
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He's taken more three pointers this season than his last four seasons combined.
He's shooting a respectable 35% from downtown too.
He's a huge Harry Potter fan.
Bosh named the last book as one of the 10 things he can't live without.
He's the only player to actively hold an editor position at a magazine.
He holds the title of "editor at large" for Ocean Drive, a Miami lifestyle magazine. He continues to be the most cultured NBA baller like ever.
According to Bosh, most evenings he falls asleep with a book in his hands.
A nerd through and through.
Last fall he wrote an op-ed for Wired on the importance of learning how to code.
It's just as thoughtfully written as you'd expect from the cerebral Bosh, and had this epic one-liner near the end: "the nerds have finally achieved their revenge."
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In high school he was in a computer graphics club called "Wizkids."
This club was probably just as lame as it sounds.
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He won a landmark cybersquatting lawsuit in 2009, freeing the domain names of 800 athletes.
A man named Luis Zavala bought the domain names of over 800 athletes and celebrities with the intention of reselling them to said athletes and celebrities, which is against federal law. When Bosh successfully sued him, all of Zavala's domains were relinquished and given to Bosh, who's gone out of his way to transfer the domains to their rightful holders. Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, and Amar'e Stoudemire were among the athletes whose domain names were in Zavala's possession.
He once played as ringer on an episode of Parks and Recreation.
If you want to see Chris Bosh dunk on a high schooler and taunt the shit out of the poor kid, look no further.
Before shooting that Parks and Recreation episode, Aubrey Plaza impersonated a hair and makeup artist to meet him, and it was really awkward.
This story is too weird to paraphrase. Here's what Plaza said about the encounter: "He comes in the hair and makeup trailer and I say, 'Hey, I'm Helena. I'm going to do your hair.' I'm thinking that he's going to go, 'Oh, it's you!' and instead, he went, 'Hi, nice to meet you.' He sat down, and I was like, 'Well...you look really good, Chris. I guess we don't have to buzz anything or edge you up. Or, maybe, do you want me to edge you up?' He was like, 'No, no, I'm good.'
"He said it was really nice to be there and he was being really polite, and he literally didn't know who I was. So I kept the bit going, and I kept doing more outrageous things so that he would get a clue that it was me joking around. I picked up this Afro wig and I was like, 'What about this? How about this fake mustache?' and he just kept staring straight down at the floor. Eventually I said, 'Well, you look great. You're all set to go,' and he went, 'Thank you very much. Nice to meet you.'"
Does life get more Chris Bosh than this?
The first time he met LeBron was at All-Star weekend in 2006, but he was apprehensive and "didn't talk to him at all."
The two shared a car ride over to the gym, but Bosh still was too shy to initiate conversation. He admits that he "wasn't as outspoken then as I am now."
He doesn't hang out with LeBron or Wade much off the court.
Bosh, the consummate professional, kept it real when speaking on his relationship with the two: "We're teammates, that's great. But people think I'm supposed to act a certain way or walk hand-in-hand together everywhere. We come together, we do our job, we have a great time when we're around each other, but I might just be sitting right here and they might be over there."
He released a movie about himself in 2010 called First Ink.
For the millions of hardcore Chris Bosh fans reading this, you can buy it for $18.05 on Amazon.
The Raptors drafted him ahead of Nick Collison because he beat Collison 1-on-1 during their pre-draft team workout.
Collison ended up going 12th overall to the Supersonics, and currently owns a 6.6 PPG career average.
He and Carmelo Anthony played themselves on a 2011 episode of Law and Order.
It's hard to find the original episode online due to copyright restrictions, but here's the plot: A youth basketball coach is accused of sexually abusing his players, and Bosh and Melo—as the coach's former players who admired him—get caught up in the crossfire. ProBasketballTalk commended their acting chops, saying that they were "successfully able to pull off playing themselves."
Before basketball became a professional possibility, he wanted to become a graphic artist.
A collection of Chris Bosh's original artwork needs to be published for the world to see.
Growing up, Kevin Garnett was his basketball hero.
Bosh has modeled his game by watching video of Garnett's moves along the baseline, in the post, and from 18 feet.
He admired Garnett so much so that his high school nickname was KG.
SMH at anyone who actually called him "KG."
He was a member of the National Honor Society in high school.
According to Bosh, the basketball court wasn't the only place where he grinded: "I just wanted to do well. It's something that I believed in. I'm competitive, and I was kind of competitive with grades, too."
His personal chef refused to teach him to chop vegetables because he was afraid that Bosh would cut himself.
Imagine having to explain to Pat Riley that you can't play because you cut your hand open chopping cauliflower. It'd be a sure addition to his list of softest moments.
His favorite food growing up was his mother's smothered pork chops.
His family lived a humble middle class existence (lobster and shrimp weren't ever on the dinner table), but whenever it was Bosh's birthday, he'd ask his mom to cook up her special gravy soaked pork dish.
He once threw up a plate of nachos during a high school game.
Said Bosh on the gross incident: "I remember in high school, I ate some nachos probably like an hour, half-hour before the game, and it's kind of gross, but a little of it came up while I was running—you know you get that burp—and I literally coughed at the same time, and it got caught in my nose, and it was during the game. And all that acid from my stomach—I couldn't see, and I had to keep playing."
Engineering was his main academic interest in high school.
Bosh's mother was a computer systems analyst and his father was a plumbing engineer and designer—with those brains, it's no surprise that he's as science-savvy as he is.
He was robbed of nearly $500K of jewelry, purses, and cash while out celebrating his birthday.
The scariest part of this story: his two kids and their babysitters were home at the time, but didn't hear any commotion. With the Sean Taylor murder in mind, athlete home invasions are always unsettling to read about.
His wife once dated Lil Wayne.
Back when Adrienne Bosh was a hip-hop vixen named "Short Stack" (what a nickname), it's alleged that Lil Wayne had a fling with her, only cutting it off when she attempted to con him out of money by faking cancer. Yikes.
He owns the most expensive home out of all active NBA players.
That's right. Priced at $12,333,000, Bosh's Florida pad is nearly $3 million more expensive than Kobe Bryant's house, and over $3 million more than the cribs of LeBron and D-Wade.
He sacrificed $15 million to sign with the Heat.
To fit all of the Big Three under the salary cap, each took less money than they could've gotten from another team in a max contract. Championship planning from the Heat.
But...he's the highest paid player on the Heat.
Per HoopsHype, both Bosh and LeBron will make $19,067,500 this season—slightly more than Dwyane Wade's $18,536,000 salary.