@chrisbosh is out. Let the #dinosaur jokes begin

@chrisbosh is out. Let the #dinosaur jokes begin

“Before anything else. Thank you Toronto. I wouldn’t be here without you all and I will miss you. Your support and love kept me going.”

That’s what Chris Bosh tweeted earlier this week after the news broke of his departure from the Raptors. In the interest of accuracy, however, we feel it necessary to point out that it really wasn’t before everything else. Bosh did, after all, tweet “MIAMI HEAT!!!!!!!!!” 13 minutes earlier. Oh, and there’s that little matter of going on ESPN with his new BFF Dwyane Wade to announce the breakup.

Hurts, doesn’t it, Toronto? Especially after general manager Bryan Colangelo made offers and the fans tried so hard. Hell, we even named the dinosaur-esque (what? We can say it now that he’s gone) Bosh one of our 50 reasons to love Toronto. But now that the initial sting is wearing off, we thought we’d look around and see what others are saying about the news.

• The Globe’s Michael Grange followed the benjamins to the heartbreak, writing, “Colangelo’s silence and Bosh’s apparent willingness to pursue his own agenda…seemed to imply a final rift between the star player and the Raptors.”

• Jeff Blair, also in the Globe, lays the blame directly on Colangelo: “However the Toronto Raptors or his few remaining apologists try to spin it, general manager Bryan Colangelo badly misread the intentions of his franchise player and in effect lost control of his most marketable asset. He blew it, in other words.”

• The Star’s Dave Feschuk was a bit more blunt: “The junkyard that is Toronto’s sports marketplace got even junkier,” he wrote.

• Around the Web, some got a little carried away, including NBA.com blogger Sekou Smith, who wrote that Bosh would become a bigger villain in Toronto than Vince Carter (is this even possible?).

Bosh is gone. We saw it coming (thanks, Twitter). And we’ll probably only care about this until tomorrow night, when LeBron James announces who he’ll be playing for next year.

Oh, and until the Maple Leafs’ next pre-season rookie game.