Derrick Rose: An Adamant Defense of His Postseason Play and MVP
After the Chicago Bulls were eliminated from the postseason, those who had argued against Derrick Rose for MVP rejoiced. To them it seemed that the Bulls' failure to beat the Heat was evidence that they were right. An honest and through examination of Rose's postseason proves otherwise.
Let's begin with two of the most obvious problems with the anti-Rose argument. First, MVP is a regular season award. Realistically, the postseson doesn't matter for the MVP. I've defended his winning that before already. There's no need to argue that though.It's a settled argument. Derrick Rose won.
The second part of the problem with that argument is in the whole disingenuous nature of it. Of all those people who have argued that Rose's elimination "proves" he didn't deserve they for the most part then go on and explain how LeBron James or Dwight Howard deserved it more.
Of course, the fact that neither James nor Howard won the championship either requires no explanation for the shifting standard.
Based on the reasoning for the award, and based on their own logic, there's really no need to defend Rose's winning based on his postseason performance. However, I would like to argue that he did, in fact, requite himself admirably in the postseason anyway.
Let's take a step back, though, and actually consider how Rose played in the playoffs. I'm not going to ignore his .396 field goal percentage, but there's more to his play than that one number. Consider some of the other numbers.
On the whole, he was one of only three players in history to score 400 points and distribute 100 assists in a single postseason at 22 or younger. The other two were LeBron James and Russell Westbrook. Rose accomplished it with the fewest games played.
He had game averages of 27 points and 7.7 assists through three series. Players who have averaged 25 points and seven assists in three or more series are Larry Bird, Clyde Drexler, Gale Goodrich, John Havlicek, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Jerry West and Oscar Robertson. Every player that has done that and is eligible is in the Hall of Fame. That doesn't go away because of ".396."
He was the first to ever average a 40 percent assist rate and 35 percent usage rate beyond the first round. Either through points or assists he accounted for over 46 percent of all the Bulls' points through the entire postseason.
To argue that somehow that's obsolete because of what happened on one of every 20 shots is just plain sticking your head in the sand. It's nothing short of "Skip Bayless" mentality. By that I mean the way that Bayless makes arguments is he starts with a conclusion and then finds data that corroborates it and then dismisses anything that doesn't.
You're probably thinking, "But Kelly, isn't that what you're doing?" No, that isn't what I'm doing. I don't entirely dismiss Rose's field goal percentage. It was too low. I'm just saying that there's more than number do consider. I'm taking in context, not as context.
Stop and think about the rest of the context. He suffered a grade two ankle sprain in the fourth game of the Indiana Pacers series. Through the first four games he scored 113 points on 88 attempts, a respectable average of 1.28 points per field goal attempt.
At the end of the fourth game he sprained his ankle severely. I twas a grade two ankle sprain. That means that there is partial tearing in the ligament. "Skip Bayless" mentality will dismiss that as an "excuse."
They will point at Kobe Bryant and say he's not making "excuses." Well, neither is Derrick Rose. I am pointing to his ankle, not Rose. Again, that's "Skip Bayless" thinking.
It's just not honest. We're not just talking about pain here. We're talking about the biological reality of what happens when a player pushes his foot off the floor. It's literally impossible for the ankle to respond in the same way. If you don't believe me try running or jumping without using your ankle.
Neither is this a kind of injury that heals within a week. In fact, it takes about six weeks to heal and that's only with rest. Playing intense NBA playoff games every two or three days is hardly resting it.
If you really don't believe it was getting to him, consider what happened when it was bothering him less.
Rose received three cortisone injections during the playoffs. One he got before Game 5 against Indiana where he went 8-for-17 and scored 25 points. The next was before Game 3 against Atlanta when he scored 44 points 16-of-27 shooting. The third he received before the first game against Miami when he went 10-for-22 to score 28.
In all he was 34-for-66 (.515) and averaged 32.3 points when he had the cortisone shots. Unbelievably though, there are going to be the critics that want to deny that the ankle had a lick to do with anything. I suppose that there exists the possibility that as no more than a happy coincidence. An honest mind will accept the possibility that it was the cortisone though.
Another convenient argument is how Jeff Teague "lit him up" while LeBron James "shut him down." In reality Jeff Tegue scored 28 points on Derrick Rose. That comes out to 4.7 points per game. Most of the others came while Teague was being guarded by Keith Bogans or CJ Watson.
What people don't realize is that after Game 1 in particular Rose took over the primary responsibility of guarding Joe Johnson, something he did quite well.
Additionally, he guarded Wade on more plays than any other member of the Bulls. That's got more than a little bit to do with Wade struggling in the Chicago series.
In reality Rose had an postseason defensively, yielding just 7.7 points per game based on the video tracking data provided by Synergy Sports
And what about getting shut down against the Heat? He scored 23.4 points per game. That might not be historic, but it isn't really getting "shut down." On a Grade 2 ankle sprain Rose scored 23.4 points per game while the single best perimeter defender in the world was guarding him.
On the other end of the court he was effectively guarding one of the two best offensive players in the world.
Amazingly, some people have taken that and made it into a "fail." It's as though people in the "Skip Bayless" world don't grasp the possibility of nuance. It's all or nothing. If you can find a blemish then the entire thing is flawed.
Yes, he had a bad field goal percentage. If you are willing to accept that just one out of every 20 shots he missed was affected by an ankle sprain then you are willing to concede that the ankle sprain was the reason for the field goal percentage. If you aren't then consider that the Bulls trainer called it the most severe he'd ever seen anyone play on.Furthermore, as pointed out earlier, when he had the cortisone working he actually shot over 50 percent from the field.
Does that mean that I think he never took a bad shot? Of course not. Yet there will be those with the Skip Bayless mentality that will try and warp the argument into that. Again, it's about perspective. It's about nuance. It's about that great vast netherworld between two extremes called "nuance."
Realistically, Derrick Rose put up some pretty historically good numbers in a good way too. That doesn't make the field goal percentage go away, but the field goal percentage doesn't make the good stuff go away either. It's the balance of things. Making what happened on one out of every 20 plays the totality of a player is warping the argument and specious, particularly when the player is injured.
When you look at the whole postseason that Derrick Rose had, it wasn't perfect, but it was pretty darned good. He led a team that hadn't been out of the first round to the Eastern Conference Finals. He put up historic numbers for his age, and numbers which have only previously been put up by Hall of Fame caliber players.
He did almost all of this on a Grade 2 ankle sprain and as a player who depends on his explosive and speed for his game. In spite of that he accounted for nearly half of his teams points through the entire postseason.
It's time to stop warping history and recognize that Derrick Rose had a pretty incredible postseason and all the screaming about ".396" isn't going to make that disappear.
