As the NBA season enters the home stretch, people are offering up their opinions on who should win the end of season awards. The biggest debate seems to be coming when discussion who should win the biggest award: Most Valuable Player. People are picking sides like they have in all great battles before this, be it Team Edward vs. Team Jacob, North vs. South, the Madness vs. the Mania, or even Rock vs. Hogan. This time it appears the debate tearing the universe apart is who deserves to be MVP: Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls or the Miami Heat's LeBron James. LeBron has won the last two years and is one of three people, alongside Steve Nash and Karl Malone, to win two MVPs and no championship. If he wins his third this year he will be the first man in history to have three MVPs and no titles. And looking at how the Heat have been playing, it doesn't seem like his championship drought is ending anytime soon. Meanwhile Derrick Rose has the Bulls playing on a level only the diehard fans imagined the team getting to this year. LeBron may put up some beastly stats, but at the end of the day Derrick Rose does too much for the Bulls to be denied the MVP honors.
LeBron continues to have his ego stroked because he can beef up a stat line like no other, but stats shouldn't be the only criteria for an MVP. I disagree with his first two MVP wins, but you could make the case for him deserving them since he made the Cavaliers look like they could be contenders (only to choke in the playoffs every year). This year though, there's no way to cover for the Heat's shortcomings. After last night's loss to the Knicks, the Heat are now 14-15 against teams who are at .500 or better. They can't win games decided by fewer than 7 points, and they are 1-7 against the NBA's elite. Sure three of those losses are to the Celtics, but if this were a playoff series they'd be on the verge of being swept. Boston outclasses them and humbles them every time they play. Miami punks out crap teams but the Heat have a serious issue against the league's better teams. Chicago, who leads the league in back to back games, has played Miami twice on the second night of back to backs and won both times. The Dallas Mavericks made the Heat their bitch the first time they played in Dallas, then went to Miami and beat them again after being down to start the 4th. The Heat's only big win was against the Lakers on Christmas, and the Lakers never give a shit about the Christmas game. Seriously the Lakers are 2-5 on Chistmas. But this isn't about them. Miami is 1-2 in their last three because losses to the Bulls and Knicks sandwiched an easy win against the lowly Washington Wizards. In those losses to the Bulls and Knicks, LeBron showed us the type of play he usualy saves up for the playoffs, and I don't mean that in a good way.
When the playoffs hit, LeBron is notorious for taking shots he can't hit and turning the ball over a lot. In 08 against the Celtics, the Cavs went out in Game 7 as LeBron took 11 threes, only connecting on 3. He jacks them up but has never been consistent or proven he should have any reason to take them. He's hit one big three ever and feels he is like a new age Ray Allen and can keep launching the three ball no matter what. In 08, what would've happened if he just took the ball at Paul Pierce and Tony Allen rather than try to launch threes up? Could the Cavs have won? I would say the odds were much more promising. But LeBron didn't learn from that mistake because the next year he hit the one big three of his career. Of course this meant he was a big time three point marksman and went 2-8 from deep in the deciding Game 6 of that series. Then last year against Boston he went 7-26 from deep for the series, including two games of going 0-4 and one going 0-5. LeBron still didn't learn from these mistakes and went 1-5 from deep against the Knicks last night and 0-4 against Chicago on Thursday. What's better is the Heat have 3 Point Contest winner James Jones and clutch shooter Eddie House, but LBJ takes the big threes. He bricked badly against the Bulls on a game tying three attempt, then last night came back from getting the shit stuffed out of him by Amar'e Stoudemire on a go ahead bucket only to brick another game tying three. The one time he hit a big three was almost two years ago, but it doesn't stop him from taking them. His inability to hold on to the ball is also costing his team. LeBron is currently third in the league in turnovers and is the only non-PG in the top five. He added to that epic stat by giving up the ball five times against New York, a team that can't even play defense. In such a close game, I'd want my star player holding on to the ball a bit better.
Meanwhile, there's the Chicago Bulls who are right on the cusp of the 1 seed in the East despite their full starting lineup only being together for 12 games now. While Rose's 24.9 points per game, 4.4 rebounds per game, and 8.1 assists and 45% shooting aren't as exciting as LeBron's 26, 7, and 7 on 49% shooting, Rose plays big. Where LeBron got the shit stuffed out of him by Stoudemire and has missed two game tying threes, Rose has made big play after big play for Chicago. There was the three against Houston. There was the ridiculous shot with the shrug against the Lakers. There was the clutch jumper a few minutes later. He hit the big shots to put Chicago in overtime against Phoenix and later win. He hit the big buckets to get them ahead against Miami. LeBron is shooting 33% from deep while Rose shoots 35 which is nearly 11 percentage points better than his average for his first two years. He has a little bit of LeBron syndrome and keeps jacking up threes he doesn't need to though. Rose is shooting 84% from the line to LeBron's 76. Derrick was a career 77.7% free throw shooter going in to the season and is now at 84%. That's amazing. Rose has 196 turnovers to LeBron's 213, and Rose handles the ball way more than LeBron does. Derrick is also the only player averaging 24 points and 8 assists in the entire NBA. The Bulls are two games back from the Eastern Conference lead and have played fewer games than Miami and Boston so far. The fact they can be the 1 seed is amazing considering Rose is his team's only All Star while Miami has their Big 3 and Boston has their Big 4.
LeBron gets to play with fellow MVP candidate Dwyane Wade and fellow All Star Chris Bosh. Chicago signed Carlos Boozer over the summer but he missed the first 15 games with a broken hand. Rose still had the Bulls in the top 4. Then right after Boozer returned, Joakim Noah had to have surgery on his hand and missed 30 games. This was supposed to ruin Chicago since Noah's 13 and 12 and inside presence being gone would cripple them against the elite teams. The Bulls went on to become the hottest team in the NBA under Rose's leadership and devestating play. They beat Boston, something Miami hasn't done. They beat Dallas for a second time while the Heat couldn't beat them once. They beat the Lakers and Orlando. Then they went up against the NBA's best team, the Spurs, and Rose exploded for a career high 42 points to go with 8 assists, 5 boards, and only 1 turnover en route to a 109-99 victory. He shot 18-28 in that game too. Rose shot poor against Miami last Thursday but he hit a big time lay up over James and Bosh to put the Bulls up 85-84 then hit a monster jumper over Dwyane Wade to put them up 89-86. He's become a big time player and nearly single handedly carried Chicago into elite status, including an 8-5 record against teams ESPN sees as elite.
But why pay attention to that? The Heat have three stars and LeBron is a once in a lifetime physical specimen. It doesn't matter the Heat can't beat teams with winning records or that LBJ can't shoot free throws. I don't know how the sporting press could pick LeBron for his third straight MVP when Derrick Rose is doing so much more with so much less. Rose wasn't even in the debate of best point guard in the league going into the season, now he's in the debate of best player in the league. How does that happen and not earn somebody an MVP? The Heat could still win 50 games without LeBron. How many games could Chicago realisitically win without Derrick Rose? It is hard for me to believe LeBron is the most valuable guy on his team when I watched Dwyane Wade carry the Heat on his back to a championship just five years ago. The Heat have a good record as promised but that 14-15 record against .500 teams speaks volumes against LBJ's MVP quest. Derrick Rose has people talking title in the Windy City once again and has elevated his game to nearly unimaginable levels for only a third year player. The Bulls would be nowhere without him.
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