Miami Heat forward Chris Bosh believes it will be "extremely frustrating" for Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love to play with superstar LeBron James. Bosh described his experience being one of the Miami Heat's Big Three as a "psychological battle" because of the constant need to make sacrifices for the team while ignoring the outside noise of media, friends and family.
Love and Bosh are identical in that they were both the stars of their respective teams before teaming up with James. Love spent the last six seasons in Minnesota as the go-to guy, something he will no longer be in Cleveland. Bosh spoke recently with Bleacher Report and described the difficulties of going from Toronto's No. 1 option to a part of the Big Three in Miami.
"Yeah, it's a lot more difficult taking a step back, because you're used to doing something a certain way and getting looks a certain way," he said. "And then it's like, well, no, for the benefit of the team, you have to get it here.
"So even if you do like the left block, the volume of the left block is going to be different. Now you have to make those moves count. So with me, it was like a chess game. I'm doing this move and thinking about the next move and trying to stay five moves ahead. You're getting it as much. If you got one or two a game, it's a lot different."
Bosh said getting used to that kind of mindset never gets easier, nor does brushing off questions from family, friends and media about why you're no longer playing the way you did before.
"'You've got to do this! You've got to do that!' So you've got to fight that," Bosh said. "'Why don't you do this? Well, you should do this!' It's like, man, they don't need me to do that, I know what I'm doing. 'Well, you should do this.' And then eventually, on one of those days, all it takes is one time, well, maybe I should be doing this.
"It's such a psychological battle."
Love has said before he is willing to make sacrifices if it means winning, but Bosh still expects him to struggle with the transition.
"It's going to be very difficult for him," said Bosh. "Even if I was in his corner and I was able to tell him what to expect and what to do, it still doesn't make any difference. You still have to go through things, you still have to figure out things on your own. It's extremely difficult and extremely frustrating.
"He's going to have to deal with that."
