ESPN’s Ric Bucher and Chris Broussard recently had a debate over who’s the early season MVP. Bucher picked Derrick Rose and Broussard chose Amar’e Stoudemire.
There’s plenty of back and forth, but here’s Bucher’s closing (and reasonably convincing) argument:
“The Bulls, without their second-best player for most of the season and their third-best player for the past two weeks, have played the fourth-toughest schedule in the East and have the third-most wins. Only Boston has done better. New York? Easiest schedule in the East, sixth-best record. Rose has done more with less against a tougher slate than anyone — and, that, to me, defines an MVP.”
By and large, MVP discussions in December are pretty meaningless. But Bucher’s observation sure brings what Rose has done this season into focus.
What is an MvP take a good look at what Rose has done and doing for his team right now all the no calls and he plays on the hard fouls no calls and he plays on the big shots he has made the way he runs the team his calmness but yet hard play on the court big time scoring now that he has another big time scorer in boozer he can do what a point is suppose to do mostly and that is make the team flow and very good at that he is by far thwe
mvp of the league hands down he had no super players for a long time til boozer came back yes noah a beast on boards but not a big time scoring threat so look at his past performances and you tell me truly not only allstar but the MVP this is his year and many more to come if his play keeps going the way it is glad to have you here Rose
@ STACEY KING *I’m so sorry for your loss stacey my prayers go out to you and your family in this time of the loss of your mother, take as much time as you need, I am here for you if you need me I know its never easy losing ones we care about especially our parents I have esperienced this myself God Blees you My brother………….
rose is a beast and it’s scary (for rest of the league) to think of how good he can become. if he continues to get to the foul line and keeps his averages up, this should be a no-brainer come the end of the regular season.
and to think lebron would rather play with wade and bosh.. put lebron on a healthy bulls squad and you may be looking at a 73-9 record.. just sayin’.
feels good to finally have a player since MJ and Pip, where the fans chant “M-V-P” ….gotta love Rose.
A Championship with Rose as PG would establish him as a de facto MVP.
MVP is something ESPN and the other national media clowns influence with their nonsensical sorts coverage.
The individual honors don’t make much sense to me. The NBA is full of selfish play and players. Why encourage an individual award?
Rose could careless about MVP if he wins with the Bulls. That’s what makes him enjoyable to follow.
Its like derrick says in his commmercial he isnt focused on any mvp awards and stats as he is winning ball games but if he wants to be the mvp he can. he’d just rather win than be an mvp with his team having a losing record.
Actually I think his quote was “as long as we are winning, I want to be MVP”.
Good to see him put team first. Some players (especially this young) would want the individual awards first, thinking they can just “win” later.
Bucher has the better case (Rose over Amare, Broussard’s opinion is generally useless), but they’re both picking one-sided players. If you’re going with an offensive player, Dirk has been better than both of these guys. If you’re looking at impact on both sides of the ball, it’s LeBron or (the massively underrated this season by seemingly everyone except Simmons and some advanced stats blog link I can’t find) Kevin Garnett. I’d put both Dwight Howard and Chris Paul (punished since his team is currently on a slide) ahead of these guys as well. I’m also not seeing what Rose is doing much better than DWill. Rose is also benefiting from the very strong play of Boozer, who’s doing a Pau Gasol for him, making up for when he’s too ball dominant a la Kobe. I love watching both Rose and Amare play, but there’s no way I can seriously consider them MVPs yet.