It's no secret that Chris Bosh made an attempt to come back from what turned out to be a career-ending and life-threatening blood disease. Recently, the 36-year-old went into detail as to the exact moment he realized he was done.

As it turns out, it wasn't anything internal that led to Bosh calling it a career. His decision actually came forth after seeing Gordon Hayward's injured his ankle in the first few minutes of his debut for the Boston Celtics in the opening night of the 2017-18 season:

“I really knew I wasn't gonna come back when Gordon Hayward dislocated his ankle,” Bosh said in a recent interview on SiriusXM NBA Radio. “I told myself that year, I said, ‘Man, let me get back in the ball.' Because I didn't watch any basketball the year before. I'm gonna work out harder, I'm gonna get back inspired. Cleveland and Boston was playing. First game. Dwyane and ‘Bron. I watched my old friends at Cleveland. Boston's got this new team. Within the first five minutes of me watching basketball that year, I see a dislocated ankle. And it pretty much knocked all the wind out of my sail. It was already really hard and getting more disheartening the further we were getting away from me not playing. And I knew that as a player. Whatever want that I had at that time, I was like, ‘Man, c'mon.'”

Hayward suffered a gruesome injury that day, and clearly, it had a significant impact on Bosh's decision to mount another potential comeback. At that point, Bosh had already tried (and failed) to make a return in the NBA, but after seeing the fate Hayward suffered, Bosh knew that this was a sign.

Bosh also shared how he had other, more important things going on in his life at that time. All these factors contributed to his decision to finally call it quits:

“I was really getting in tune with my children and being a husband and a father at home,” he said. “I knew right then and there that I can't play because that can happen to me. If you stop playing you're more prone to injury and it was a pretty huge wake-up call. I've just really been falling into loving the game from a different aspect and it's really been working out great.”

There's no denying that Chris Bosh was robbed of playing a couple more years in his prime. Nevertheless, his decision to retire is one that could have literally saved his life.