Much of the buzz these days around the NBA has to do with Derrick Rose. A well-deserving All-Star on a good Chicago team battling near the top of the Eastern Conference, there have been whispers of “MVP” from some of the collected talking heads and quite a lot of chanting in various arenas around the NBA.

At the same time, some people are comparing him to a former MVP, Allen Iverson, often in a disparaging manner. I’m not typically an Allen Iverson fan by any stretch of the imagination, so some of what I say here may be a surprise, but right now, Derrick Rose is having a season that’s strongly comparable to Allen Iverson’s 2001 MVP season.

I won’t go so far as to say he deserves the MVP, nor do I believe Iverson deserved it in 2001, but now as then, a player can be considered in the MVP vote without really deserving to win it. I think that’s the case here with Rose, I think he’s one of the top-10 players in the league this season and that his name very much should be in the mix in the MVP discussion. I don’t think he should win the award, but he should finish top-5 in that voting.

So what is he doing that’s so remarkable?



Statistically speaking, you can’t ignore what’s going on for him this year. At a basic level, you see him playing well. Rose has a PER of 22.9, .193 WS/48, top-10 in APG, sixth in the league in PPG, seventh in win shares so far, tenth in defensive win shares, he’s popping up all over the place statistically speaking. He’s a little under league average in terms of TS%, which is problematic, but he’s at 111 ORTG, which is noticeably above average. More importantly, his seasonal TS% is mostly the product of a 10-game stretch shooting 39.6% FG so far in March. He was at 54% TS before this month, so that’s a 0.4% overall shift in his scoring efficiency just from these last 10 games, which is pretty significant. When he comes out of this stretch and wakes up again, and he surely will, it’ll even him out back to average efficiency or perhaps a little higher than that. His three has abandoned him over the last 21 games or so, he’s shooting under 26% from downtown in that stretch and that’s been quite atypical compared to the first 44 games of the season. You have to expect that to come back a little as the season winds down, which should help him.

This level of efficiency is why people want to compare him to Iverson, but they forget that prime Iverson was often quite far below league average in TS% (frequently under 50% TS), and that he was shooting a higher volume as well, not sharing quite the same or interacting quite as well with scoring teammates compared to how Rose is performing in Chicago.

Beyond this, Chicago is winning. A lot. They’re tied for the first seed in the East and they are tied with Boston and the Lakers for the second most wins in the league at 49. This has happened while Boozer and Noah have played 45 and 37 games, respectively. With such an injury-ravaged frontcourt, this is still one of the best teams in the league and that’s largely been on the strength of them being the best defense in the league and still being average on offense despite lacking two huge parts of their offense for significant stretches of the season. A lot of this has to do with Rose being an effective playmaker who doesn’t turn the ball over a lot at all. This is especially true when you consider that he’s second in the league in usage and eighth in AST%. That means he’s using a whole range of possessions as a scorer but he’s still managing to be one of the eight most prolific passers while he’s on the floor, which is impressive. Rose is intimately involved in the Chicago offense and though he’s struggling at the moment, the Bulls are still succeeding. Not just succeeding, they are excelling. He’s a huge part of that, and that means that while he may not deserve to win the award, he has certainly earned consideration.

Again, we’re talking about the lead player on one of the four best teams in the league and he’s playing a pretty strong brand of basketball. The value of the shots he creates and the shots he takes is significant. It’s not enough to totally overcome the fact that his efficiency is still mediocre, but he also isn’t as far apart from league average as was, say, Allen Iverson. In any event, even Iverson was a good player. Not as good as some of his fans would have you believe, true, but still a useful player, especially in the 2000-2001 season.

Likewise, Rose isn’t the best player in the league, the best player on the best team, or any of the other rotating definitions used to justify MVP selections. He shouldn’t win it, Dwight Howard is doing a far more compelling job as a statistically dominant force on a very good team without nearly as much help even if you factor in the injuries to Boozer and Noah. One could also make compelling arguments for a number of other players (such as Dirk, Lebron, maybe even Kobe), even including Nash if you reach a little (as a fringe candidate, mind, not a legit chance to win). Rose would fit in more with someone like Nash than with Dirk, Dwight, etc.

There is just so much going for Rose right now that it would be a fool’s game to ignore his performance. You don’t have to reward someone with the actual reward in order to discuss their candidacy and if you fail to recognize what he’s doing, you have a fundamental failure in your criteria for the award. He definitely appears on the radar when you’re looking at team achievements, individual achievements, all of those things. He’s a newer player, he isn’t hyper-efficient and he isn’t a dominant big man, all some of the many reasons people are resistant to the very idea that this guy (who wasn’t at all on the MVP map last season) should suddenly be a significant candidate this year. Well enough, he shouldn’t win, but we discuss possibilities for the MVP award for a reason, in order to give those their due who have earned our attention and respect for what they have achieved in an NBA season.

Derrick Rose has certainly authored a more than respectable campaign, one deserving of the kind of attention he has received. Enjoy the game, he’s playing a pretty good brand of basketball with an interesting mix of volume scoring and playmaking. When Boozer comes back, it’ll make life a little easier for him, and maybe help him boost his efficiency a little bit. Then the real crucible begins as the Bulls enter the playoffs. That’s when we’ll get a really good feel for him. In principle, the MVP is a regular season award, but in practice we evaluate the validity of an MVP based on the player’s performance in that postseason. Rose may not win the MVP in the regular season, and shouldn’t, but if he has a really good playoff run with Chicago this year, then he’ll be looked upon in a different light next season and we will accept him into our limited pantheon of potential MVPs for next year.