How the international media covered Chris Bosh visit to Ghana

Chris Bosh visited Ghana for the second edition of the Sprite Ball Clinic over the weekend.

This is how the international media covered the historic event in the African country.

Chris Bosh visits Ghana amid free agency frenzy: http://fansided.com

While nearly all of the focus on this year’s NBA free agency period has been on LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, no one has forgotten about All Star big man Chris Bosh and where he will ultimately land.

Bosh has made it clear that he wants to play with LeBron James, and he is willing to take a major pay cut in order to return to Miami with “The King.” With James’ decision seemingly right around the corner, Bosh is waiting in the wings to see what his former Heat teammate will do.

With a four-year, $88 million dollar contract offer from the Houston Rockets waiting on the table for Bosh, LeBron’s decision can not come fast enough. 

Amidst the free agency frenzy, Bosh has decided to get away from it all and take a trip to Ghana with his family.

Bosh will be participating in the Basketball Without Borders program, and he spoke to the media upon his arrival:

Of course it’s a great feeling to be here in Ghana. I’ve heard a much about the country and how nice its people are. So it’s a place I very much was interested in coming and I’m already enjoying my time here with this wonderful reception.

Bosh will be working with kids during his time in Ghana, and he is excited about the opportunity to help them grow:

I love to work with kids so I definitely will have a good time teaching and playing basketball with them. I know Africans are very talented and it will be a privilege to help nurture and inspire them to develop their game and get opportunity to play in the NBA.

Even while in Ghana, we can be sure Bosh will anxiously be awaiting LeBron’s decision just like every other basketball player and fan on this planet.

NBA star Chris Bosh arrives in Ghana for Basketball Clinic: http://www.ameyawdebrah.com/

Former Miami Heat star Chris Bosh, has arrived in Accra ahead of the second edition of the Sprite Ball Clinic on Thursday July 10. The NBA star arrived at the Kotoka International Airport on Thursday afternoon and will spend five days in Ghana interacting with players and officials in the continuation of the promotional drive. Chris was excited to be in Ghana and hopeful that his visit would impact Basketball in Ghana positively. He was met on arrival by the Ghanaian press and some screaming fans, while his imposing height left onlookers stunned.

The 30-year-old is joined by a delegation from NBA Africa,and together they will have discussions with the Ghana Basketball Association, participate in player clinics and familiarize themselves with the current status of the growing sport in the country. The visit hopes to inspire the basketball community to pursue excellence on the court and other field of endeavours.

The first session will take place on Friday July 11 at the Aviation Social Centre in Accra from 1pm where players drawn from the Greater Accra region will have the NBA Africa team along with Chris Bosh to impart them with more NBA knowledge and tips. All roads leads to Cape Coast on the following Saturday for a similar exercise at Adisadel College to assess the level of shared knowledge.

The two-day event forms part of a screening exercise to select a player to represent the country at the 2014 Basketball Without Borders programme in South Africa in August this year. Talented Ghanaian youngster Philip Osafo, who attended Kings College in Kumasi, participated in the annual event last year after impressing during the maiden edition of the Sprite Ball Clinic in Ghana.

Chris Bosh went to Ghana instead of waiting around for free agency news: http://ftw.usatoday.com/

As the rest of the NBA world seems to be worrying about the future of the Big Three, Chris Bosh is seeing the world outside that bubble.

According to his Twitter account, the NBA big man arrived in Ghana with his family on Thursday.

Bosh has been posting photos from his vacation for the past week, including when he spent some quality time with a camel:

The vacation, which is hashtagged #Boshfamilyworldtour, seems like a much better time than waiting around for the free agency drama to settle — and avoid questions about his own choice for next season.

AP Interview: Heat F Chris Bosh says he’s excited for the post-LeBron challenge in Miami:

Chris Bosh is staying in Miami because of his family, and because he believes the Heat will still be competitive even without LeBron James.

Bosh made his comments Sunday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Ghana, where he’s been doing some work with NBA Africa in recent days while taking a break from a family vacation.

Bosh says he was tempted by an offer to join the Houston Rockets. He says he turned it down because his decision hinged on more than “the business of basketball” and instead revolved largely around the fact that his wife and children are happy in South Florida.

He’ll soon be signing a five-year, $118 million contract to stay with the Heat.

Chris Bosh: ‘We’ve built a life in South Florida: http://msn.foxsports.com/ 

Half a world away, Chris Bosh could not escape the frenzy of last week.
An offer from the Houston Rockets was waiting. His longtime Miami teammate LeBron James was leaving. For a few moments, Bosh found himself wondering if his days with the Heat were over.
Then he looked at his family, and everything stopped.
”We’ve built a life in South Florida and we’re comfortable,” Bosh said Sunday. ”So I had to do what’s best now for myself and my family.”
With that, his decision became very easy. Bosh will sign a $118 million, five-year deal to stay with the Heat, a formality only held up by the logistical challenge presented by him being in Ghana right now and with more exotic stops on a family vacation still to come before returning home.
When he finally puts pen to paper, the Heat locker room will essentially become his — and in an interview with The Associated Press, Bosh said that while it’s a shock to realize James is no longer with Miami after four seasons, he’s ready to have that voice.
”I can’t lie to you: I’m excited. I’m excited for the challenge,” Bosh said during a break from NBA Africa duties. ”I want to step up to the challenge. I feel this is a chance to prove to myself and others that I can still do this.

”I want to see if I can do what’s necessary to go in there and win every night. That’s the challenge of being a leader. It excites me. It’s been a long time and I feel like I’m a much better player and a leader now, so it’ll be fun.”
Bosh had that role in Toronto before coming to Miami, then was perceived as a No. 3 behind James and Dwyane Wade when they teamed up in 2010 to begin the ”Big 3” era with the Heat.

Now, Bosh will be one of the league’s highest-paid players over the next five seasons, and with that comes a responsibility role to lead.

”It’s a very different process,” Bosh said, ”but I think I know how to do it.”

The Heat called James’ decision disappointing, and Bosh acknowledged that there was a ”shock factor” when he heard, but Miami is moving on.

They’ve locked Bosh up, are closing in on a new deal with Wade and got a commitment Sunday from small forward Luol Deng on a two-year deal not long before point guard Mario Chalmers announced on Twitter that he’s returning to the team. A league source also told Yahoo! Sports that Chris “Birdman” Andersen has signed a multi-year deal with the Heat. Plus, the Heat have deals pending with forwards Josh McRoberts and Danny Granger.
“Proud to say I’m back,” Chalmers wrote.

Miami has been to the NBA Finals in each of Bosh’s first four seasons there, the team’s two-year run as champions coming to an end when the Heat lost in five games to San Antonio last month.
Bosh got over that loss fast.

”We weren’t going to beat those guys,” Bosh said. ”They were clicking on all cylinders. … You can accept losing to such a great team.”

After that, free agency followed. Bosh, Wade and James met last month for lunch, one that created tons of speculation once word got out about the meal.

Bosh said much of what was reported was overblown, and that was the day he started thinking the run was over.
”It’s not what everybody thought it was,” Bosh said. ”We were just talking and having lunch with each other. Did I expect to kind of figure things out? Yeah, for sure. But it wasn’t that. We just enjoyed having lunch. That’s when I could tell, there’s a possibility that somebody could be in a different uniform next year.”

Soon, the Rockets came calling. Their pitch: Come to Houston, join Dwight Howard and James Harden and keep contending for titles.

”I’d be lying if I sat here and said Houston wasn’t enticing,” Bosh said. ”You look at their roster and you can kind of see why it makes sense for them to be interested in me, with the chance they have to be successful. They’re going to be a good team regardless next year. It just seemed like I would be that final piece that they needed. It was a hard choice to turn down.”

Bosh insists the Heat will be good next season. How good, that will largely be up to him.
”We have so much chemistry,” Bosh said. ”We’ll just be continuing without LeBron. It’s starting a different chapter. It’s exciting. I think it should be motivation for everybody to step up to the plate. We’re fortunate enough to have some of the same guys. We should be able to say, ‘Hey, we can come out here and compete no matter what happens.’ ”

Basketball: Heat star Chris Bosh “teaches” at SpriteBall Clinic in Ghana: http://www.citifmonline.com/

Miami Heat forward Chris Bosh was the “head tutor” of the SpriteBall Basketball clinic organised in Accra and Cape Coast on Friday and Saturday 12 and 13th July, 2014.

The player was in Ghana as part of NBA Africa’s partnership with NBA Africa, Coca Cola and the Ghana Basketball Association and held sessions with 16 teenagers from some senior high schools. The session in Accra was held at the Aviation Social Centre while the one in the Central Region was held at the Adisadel College.

Speaking at the event, Bosh expressed his delight at being in Ghana and sharing his experience with the teenagers.

“First of all, I would like to thank the Ghana Basketball Association, Sprite, NBA Africa for giving me the opportunity to come here. I did not get such an opportunity to be spoken by an NBA star but you here are very lucky to have this chance. You have a special opportunity to play this game.

You have the potential to be very good basketball players and that is good. Basketball is the best game in the world and you must love it and practise very hard. Basketball can do so many great things for you. Never be afraid to dream.

He continued to explain how basketball had opened the door for him to a better life.

“As I was growing in the game, my father told me of how basketball could get me to college and all. It blew my mind knowing that basketball could give me access to one of the best schools in the United States.

I went to Georgia Tech to get some good education and that was possible because of basketball. I got drafted into the NBA after just a year and that was a dream-come-true but I kept working hard on my game and that has brought me to you today.”

CEO of Rite Multimedia, organisers of the SpriteBall Basketball Clinic, Yaw Sakyi told Citi Sports he was pleased with the presence of Bosh and that the clinic had been a success and hoped for bigger initiatives in the near future with NBA Africa and Sprite.

Bosh was not the only professional basketball star at the clinic because he was joined by Ghanaian-British professional basketball player Dzaflo Larkai.

Larkai, who plays in Japan with Sendai 89ers and has won the Japanese basketball league three times, told Citi Sports that he was impressed with the skill levels of the teenagers at the clinic and explained that with enough hard work, Ghanaian basketball players could be heading to the big time.

“The guys are very receptive and very willing to learn. That is the way to success in all areas. if you are willing to learn from those who have the experience, you will go far.

They have the talent and for them to go far, it will take a lot of dedication and hard work. They must also seek to stand out from the crowd and be willing to put themselves out there in the public by sending videos to coaches and teams all around. That could be the key to the huge break.”

Aside the skill-learning techniques and drills, the selected players also took part in a slam dunk competition and a three-point contest to test their abilities and entertain the crowds that had gathered at the venue.