Revisiting the now absurd Derrick Rose 2011 MVP award

When Derrick Rose won the 2011 NBA MVP in just his third season in the league, it was hardly a consensus pick. It was a complicated season, where Rose, Dwight Howard, LeBron James, and Dirk Nowitzki were all viable candidates. Rose was something of a controversial pick at the time due to his relatively pedestrian advanced numbers. He was ninth in Player Efficiency Rating (23.5), and 10th in Win Shares (.208). Strong numbers to be sure, but perhaps not what we’d expect from an MVP, especially when he trailed more established stars like LeBron, Howard, Dirk, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, and Pau Gasol. So yes, even in 2011, there were some doubts about the legitimacy of D-Rose’s MVP case.

At the same time, Rose’s win wasn’t the wildest idea in the world. He was the best player on the best team in the league (which is a simplistic way of picking MVP, but one that plenty will always gravitate to), and perhaps more importantly, he was an incredibly talented player who was ridiculously fun to watch. And, importantly, it seemed like he would only get better.

When we watched Rose’s wild drives to the basket, the eye test took over our instincts: how this guy not the MVP? And how would he not win two or three more in the future? Of course, the fact that The Decision had sullied LeBron’s public reputation was clearly an issue with voters. So, in 2011, D-Rose wasn’t the most clear-cut MVP, but it was a defensible pick.

Now, it looks completely ridiculous.

Ask most NBA nerds who the MVP should have won that year, and the most popular answer will likely be Howard, who had the best season of his career, averaging career highs in points (22.9) and was an absolutely dominating defensive presence. Anyone who watched him can tell you that he aced the eye-test just as much as Rose, as he completely controlled the paint at both ends that season.

Revisionist history might give the MVP to Howard or LeBron and it’s possible that Rose would slip all the way to fourth, with Dirk Nowitzki sliding in ahead of him.

Why have our perceptions of Rose’s 2010-11 campaign changed? Well, because just about everything has gone wrong in the time since. Obviously there’s the injuries. Rose missed the entire 2012-13 season after injuring his ACL in April 2012 in the first game of the Bulls’ playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers (which they lost in six games). The following year, he played just ten games, and looked nothing like his former self, shooting just 35.4 percent from the field. Things got better in 2014-15, when he managed to play 51 games, and began to look like a basketball player again, but his numbers were still nowhere near his peak, and he just wasn’t the same player. Rose remained a crafty scorer around the basket, but his early dominance had faded, and his skill around the hoop could no longer ameliorate his issues with 3-point shooting.

That’s where the problem gets worse; as the Splash brothers began to take over the NBA, the 3-ball became more and more prominent, to the point where any player who couldn’t shoot them effectively would be severely limited as an offensive player no matter how skilled they were elsewhere. Rose could never thrive as a 3-point shooter, and in fact, has only shot above .300 from downtown three times in his career, the most recent one being in the aforementioned 2013-14 season, where he only played ten games anyway.

If Rose had maintained the stunning elusiveness that defined his early career, or became a competent defender, or a more polished facilitator, he might have been able to stay a star without developing a 3-point shot. Instead, inefficient volume scoring has defined the later half of Rose’s career, and his weak defense hasn’t done much to help matters. Derrick Rose can still occasionally make a play that reminds you “oh right, that guy used to be really good.” Lately, though, it’s certainly been the exception to the rule.

Now, here’s where things get complicated; our perception of Rose has also been effected by what he’s done off the court. Specifically, the accusation that in August 2013, that he participated in the gang rape of a woman he had previously been in a relationship with. Rose was never brought up on criminal charges and he won the civil case that was brought about the incident. Still, the accusation lingers and if even you take the most charitable (to Rose) interpretation of what happened he comes off looking bad.

Before the accusation was revealed, Rose was the NBA’s ultimate hard luck case. Fans and journalists alike couldn’t help but feel bad for a former MVP’s career being so thoroughly derailed by injuries. Given those accusations, and his struggles to find a fit with a new team, he’s become a much less sympathetic figure.

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All of these factors have lead to Rose’s MVP award looking like utterly bizarre (and even regrettable) in retrospect. Injuries cost him his explosiveness, and his inability to hit the newly important 3-ball expounded the problem. He can’t play defense and his likability has been mostly eroded. What we’re left with is a career that has been massively disappointing on every possible level, and an MVP award that seemed defensible at the time, but now seems like one of the most absurd decisions in league history.