Derrick Rose Just Keeps Raising the MVP Bar, Can Anyone Keep Up?
Whenever you think Derrick Rose can't do anymore to elevate his MVP standing, he does. He's taken the adage, "When the going gets tough the tough get gong" and made the adage respect him. When Carlos Boozer was out for the start of the season, Rose had the team going 9-5. When he came back, they were 7-2. When Joakim Noah went out they were 11-5, including wins over Boston and Miami. The one game he missed, the Bulls lost.
Then, it was as if he were the NBA version of Job when yet another tragedy befell him, and asked him, what can you do without either. Derrick Rose didn't skip a beat but responded with his first career triple double.
It's hard to compile all the reasons he deserves to be in the front for the award. It's more than just the numbers, though they are incredible. At 24 points and eight assists, he stands to be the first point guard in a decade to accomplish that feat. No, it would be almost insulting to do reduce him to numbers.
It's not just the clutch performances, although there are those, too. In five different games this year, he's either made free throws or field goals to send the game into overtime or win it. He's gone toe to toe in the fourth quarter with the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade and has beaten them all. But even that's not the biggest reason for his candidacy.
It's not that the Bulls are competing at an elite level, sitting in the top seven in the power rankings for ESPN, the NBA, Fox Sports and CBS Sports. Only Spurs, the Lakers, the Celtics and the Heat have better records than they do. Only the Heat and Spurs have a better record since Dec. 4th. The Bulls are indeed an elite team, but that's only part of the reason that Rose is running away with the MVP.
What's amazing about Rose is that he's doing this without his key assets around him. He's been doing it all while he's learning a new system, with a new head coach, and new teammates. He's not just carrying the team. He's carrying them through as much adversity as any team has had to go through this season, and the more intense the adversity gets, the more Rose rises to the challenge.
While some will point to Amar'e Stoudemire and his improvement of the Knicks franchise, the Knicks haven't been as prolific as the Bulls this season, and they've had their full cast most of the season. Less success through less adversity doesn't make for an MVP.
The Spurs have been steam rolling, but they've been doing it with a group of players. There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't make for MVP. If it's 50/50 on who the MVP of the team is how can you be the MVP of the league. The same can be said of Wade and James with the Heat.
Dirk Nowitizi went down and his team went down too. That's an argument in itself, but showing that your team can't survive without you is not as good of an argument as showing that it can survive with you through adversity.
Dwight Howard is in the conversation, in part because he had his team change around him, and he's been the constant who has kept the team winning. However, the fact that his team had to change in the first place says that he needed more help. It ends up being a difficult argument that a player deserves it more because he got better teammates in the middle of the season.
Certainly all of these players have performed at a level that merits consideration. However when you look at the fact that Rose has performed at least as well as the others through as much or more adversity as any of the other candidates, it becomes evident that he alone is standing tall.
