Another factor may be that Rose is “stealing” blocks from teammates. The Bulls have a 50% better block rate with Rose off the floor than with him on the floor. I’ll have to watch film, but perhaps he guards his man all the way to the rim instead of funneling and switching once help comes.

Actually it does say something about his ability to rebound. Considering that he is the one that makes the offense ‘go round’ and Thibs’ amazing defensive scheme is what the defense ‘go round;’ doesn’t it make a little sense that he spends more energy on offense than on defense? Since he can’t count on the majority of his teammates to provide the offense, perhaps he has the ‘green light’ to lag a bit on getting back on defense to see if there is a second chance opportunity to score. Furthermore, since he is arguably the fastest player in the league and with a full head of steam almost impossible to stop on the break, perhaps he has the ‘green light’ to take off right when the opposing team shoots the ball.

In my humble opinion, a player with his freakish athleticism that is tops in offensive rebounding, and has a team with the best defense, though doesn’t rank near the top in defensive rebounding sorta says something about doing what is asked of him (you know, since they are #1 in the East) and not worrying about getting triple doubles/being a “20-10-50” player.

Just a thought.

He makes a very concerted effort, almost every night to hunt down shots. He is an innate competitor all around (in a way that separates him from LeBron, imho).

i think it is also worth mentioning that D Rose has missed 1 game while LeBron has missed ~4 games… i wonder what the per game / per 36 minutes stats are on those