Chicago Bulls: Why Derrick Rose Is Not the MVP of the NBA
The NBA MVP award is the most meaningless MVP in all of professional sports.
It is the yearly "who is the best player on the best team" award.
The last time an MVP was crowned who wasn't on a team at the top of the conference standings was in the 2005-06 season when Steve Nash won the award while playing for the Phoenix Suns. They were the second seed in the Western Conference that year.
After that, you have to go all the way back to the 1998-99 shortened season when Karl Malone won the award while playing for the Western Conference's third seed, the Utah Jazz.
That being said, even they had been tied for first place alongside the San Antonio Spurs, but lost the tiebreaker. Despite having a better record than the second seed, the Portland Trailblazers, the Jazz still came in third since Portland had also won their division.
This year, your options are someone on the Chicago Bulls or the San Antonio Spurs—and there's really no question that Derrick Rose sells more tickets than an aging Tim Duncan or a balding Manu Ginobili.
However, if you investigate the numbers and dive into the stats, there is a substantial amount of proof that tells you that Derrick Rose really isn't the MVP for the 2010-2011 season.
That's Bull
Derrick Rose can score. You won't find an argument from me there.
Rose is currently seventh in the league in points per game. He trails Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Amare Stoudemire, Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony.
However, Rose also takes more shots than all six of the players mentioned above.
In fact, Rose has attempted the second most field goals in the NBA this season, trailing only Monta Ellis of the 32-42 Golden State Warriors.
Basically, Rose averages less points than six other players in the league, even though he has taken more shots than all of them. In the case of Wade, for example, Rose has taken 182 more shots.
Rose ranks 91st in the Association in field-goal percentage at 44 percent shooting. Since when did someone get labeled as the most valuable anything when 90 other people were better than that person?
To put that in perspective, LeBron James is 24th in field-goal percentage (this is by no means an affirmation that LeBron should be MVP).
Amongst his fellow point guards in the league, Rose ranks 17th in field-goal percentage. Beno Udrih, Luke Ridnour and Ramon Sessions are shooting better than the potential MVP candidate.
Of course, Rose has taken way more shots than those three but that is not what field goal percentage measures. It is a measure of one's average shooting percentage.
Smelling Rose-y
So, surely there must be something that Derrick Rose is elite at? There must be something that separates him from the competition—something that's making him the surefire candidate to win the award?
Maybe it's his ability to dish the ball to his teammates.
Having said that, among point guards around the league, Rose is still behind nine other players in assists per game—just ahead of Devon Harris and Andre Miller.
His 2.25 assist-to-turnover ration is good enough for 34th among other point guards. He trails Jose Juan Barea, Rodney Stuckey and rookie John Wall.
He's also turned the ball over more than anyone except Dwight Howard and Russell Westbrook and is tied for sixth for turnovers at 3.5 per game.
While the Bulls are in the top tier of defensive teams; defensively, Rose is nothing close to valuable. He's something more like average.
In the Bulls' last five games, Rose's counterpart has averaged 17.6 points per game.
Those games were against the Kings, Hawks, Grizzlies, Bucks and 76ers. Not the Lakers, Celtics, Heat, Spurs or Mavericks.
Rose ranks 19th in steals when paired against his fellow point guards in the league, right behind Eric Bledsoe and Jose Calderon.
In double doubles, Rose ranks 29th in the league somewhere behind rookie Demarcus Cousins, Raymond Felton and Kris Humphries.
You Mess With the Bull, You Get the Horns
Statistically speaking, Derrick Rose is quite average when it comes down to it. Maybe not average, but surely not so valuable as to crown him with the same trophy awarded to Michael Jordan, Karl Malone and some of the NBA's all-time greatest, who dominated the game in multiple areas.
That is not to say that eventually Rose wouldn't deserve it—it just means that, for now, Derrick Rose should not be crowned the MVP of the league.
He has brought the Bulls back to relevance in the NBA, but that has come with the help of defensive mastermind Tom Thibodeau and a solid cast of supporting players.
With the improvement of the team's defense, Derrick Rose has been shoved into the spotlight as the leading man on the best team in the league.
That's all he really is. The best player on the team with the best record in its respective conference.
Not the Most Valuable Player of the National Basketball Association.
Feel free to comment and discuss below. Follow Zack on twitter @ZackDuarte
