ON THE EVENING OF NOVEMBER 4, the date of the American presidential election, Chris Bosh, the Raptors’ 24-year-old star forward, sat on his couch in his downtown condo to watch the coverage. He didn’t turn the TV off until seven hours later, when Barack Obama had been proclaimed the first black president of the United States and had given his victory speech in Chicago. Bosh had practice in the morning, and later a game against the Detroit Pistons, but before he went to bed, he turned on a video camera and recorded a clip for his Web site, chris-bosh.com.

Onscreen, he looked tired and languid but seriously happy, and totally unaffected. The only immodest thing about him was the suggestion that someone else might be interested in hearing what he had to say. He spoke about how proud he was of his home country; about Obama’s perseverance against all odds; and about the historical importance of that day, which he’d spent “soaking it all in.” He concluded his message with the following:

“Just to show you what kind of leader [Obama] is and will be, I’ve had people calling me who are Canadian, who are very proud, and they couldn’t even vote,” Bosh said. “[Obama]’s bringing all the people together—black, white, Asian, African, Hispanic. A very charming guy, a stand-up guy. It’s indescribable... I just wanted to say, congratulations, Mr. Barack Obama, I’m very proud to be an American citizen... I’m off to bed. Game day for me tomorrow.”

It was an interesting sign-off, and not just because Bosh’s video fetish appeared to be interfering with his pre-game preparations. It was notable because it wasn’t the usual narrow-minded bluster that tends to emanate from U.S.-based pro sports teams in this city. It also wasn’t glib, self-serving or smug. Instead, it was something unprecedented in an athlete of any age from south of the border. In the past year, Chris Bosh has not only matured as a player, but as a person, and his newfound confidence is being recognized throughout the NBA and beyond. The more famous he becomes, the more unpretentious he seems. The Bosh brand of celebrity is reflective, humble and naggingly familiar. You might even call it Canadian.

THE EVOLUTION OF CHRIS BOSH to the poised young man video-messaging the president-elect wasn’t painless. When Bosh first came to Toronto nearly six years ago to play for the Raptors, he was 19, shy and skinny. The six-foot-10 power forward opted to leave Georgia Tech (where he was studying graphic design and computer imaging), after a superlative freshman season with the school’s basketball team, to enter the NBA draft. Bosh had grown up in Hutchins, Texas, a town with a population of about 3,000. When the Raptors picked him fourth overall in the draft, he promptly found himself in a city approximately a thousand times bigger. “I didn’t really know what to expect coming in,” he says today. “Any young guy that comes to a big city probably isn’t going to like it right off the bat. I didn’t know where to go, everything was new to me. It took a long time to get used to it—but eventually I did. And it’s a really good city, a great city.”

It wasn’t just the new city that was unsettling. Bosh’s draft year was one of the richest in NBA history. His companions—Le­Bron James, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade—were all exceptionally talented, and he must have felt the pressure to measure up. Suddenly everyone wanted a piece of him. Immediately after the draft, Vince Carter, the Raptors’ star at the time, pressed the team to trade Bosh for a veteran player. But then–general manager Glen Grunwald refused to barter away his new acquisition.

It was a shrewd decision. Bosh’s three other draft-mates from 2003 have been impressive to date: James (King James, as he’s called), who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers, is arguably first or second among players in the league; Wade has already won a championship with the Miami Heat; and Anthony may be the smoothest performer on an NBA court today. But each has a downside that Bosh does not, and that may make him the greatest impact player of all.

James, the consummate team player on the court, is decidedly less so when he’s off. After playing the Knicks in Manhattan recently, he sat at the post-game press conference and all but promised that he’ll be moving to the Big Apple when he becomes a free agent in 2010. Wade is a warrior, but his fearless style has made him prone to injury. Anthony is brilliant but inconsistent, and lacks heft in his character. Bosh, on the other hand, is starting to exude the relentless professionalism of, if not a Michael Jordan, then a Bill Russell, the legen­dary Boston Celtics centre who is still considered the master of finding ways to win.