Why the Rose Injury Doesn't Really Matter
Feb 25, 2015 16:48:20 GMT -6
Heynong Man, 20s Navidad, and 1 more like this
Post by eric on Feb 25, 2015 16:48:20 GMT -6
He Was Never That Good
Derrick Rose won the MVP in 2011. I have described this award as a "sham" in the past and I will go into greater detail. Since the media began voting on the MVP in 1980, only three men have won it without being on a top two team in either conference: Moses Malone 1982, Michael Jordan 1988, Steve Nash 2006. Thus, in any given year it only makes sense to look at the top two teams in each conference unless something really incredible happens. The relevant teams from 2011 and their best players that year, followed by their ranks in Win Shares, Wins Produced, VORP Wins, and On/Off among these four:
Chicago Bulls - Derrick Rose (3, 4, 2, 4 = 13)
Miami Heat - LeBron James (1, 1, 1, 3 = 6)
San Antonio Spurs - Manu Ginobili (4, 3, 4, 1 = 12)
Los Angeles Lakers - Pau Gasol (2, 2, 3, 2 = 9)
And now you can see why Rose won. Not for any winning case on his part, but simply because the voters didn't want to give the award to any of the other three. LeBron was dealing with Decision fallout, Manu couldn't get any traction because many voters still (inexplicably) believed Parker to be a more important Spur, same story for Pau and Kobe (who comically got a first place vote). Rose was the only option because of pre-existing biases. He was the best player on an elite team, and that's not nothing, but it's not MVP either. For some reason people frequently claim Dwight Howard had the best stats that year, but if you put him in the above mixer his ranks would be 3, 1, 4, 4. It made and still makes zero sense to advocate for Howard's worse stats on the fourth place Magic over LeBron's better stats on the second place Heat.
And that was his only good year. His only All-NBA team, his only year with 10+ WS, his only playoff series wins. One good but overhyped year, that's it.
He Was Terrible This Year
A lot of people will use FIBA as a kind of totem. If a player does better than expected, he was awesome in FIBA and that experience was a springboard for him. If a player does worse, his experience in FIBA is totally ignored. Sometimes this happens both ways for one player in the same year: playing for Team USA had really matured DeMarcus Cousins, he's trying on defense now, oops they fired the coach and he's a bum again, let us never speak of FIBA again. Most people can't be bothered to actually check the FIBA stats, but I can. Derrick Rose was awful. He shot 3 for 22 on jump shots, that robust .136 wouldn't even be a good batting average let alone field goal percentage. His 0.21 Win Shares were the worst on the team, somehow worse than Andre Drummond who only played 46 minutes. Every player on the team had .150+ WS/48 except for Rose's .048. He played the 7th most minutes and had the most turnovers.
Everything about his FIBA was bad. (For the record, he was also terrible in FIBA 2010, with the 9th most WS in the 2nd most MP.) And pretty much everything about it transferred over to his NBA year. These Bulls play at a much faster pace than the 2011 versions, but if we look at pace corrected stats we see that his turnovers are up, his assists are way down, his jump shot is broken and to make matters worse he's relying on it more than ever. His %s at the rim, from 16-23, and from 3 in 2011 were 61%, 40%, and 33%. These are workable %s. Not good, but if you're drawing fouls and making passes they can work. This year they were at 55%, 39%, and 29%, and to top it all off he's drawing fouls at 65% of the rate he did in 2011.
This aggregate badness is reflected in his aggregate stats: WS/48 at a below average .05, VORP at a replacement level 0.2, on/off at an unbelievably low +0.2 given that his replacements are mainly Aaron Brooks and Kirk Hinrich.
He Wasn't Getting Better
This is the biggest problem, and the fact that there are bigger problems than shooting friggin' 29% from 3 is scary enough. After missing games and playing poorly when he played at all, Rose seemed to put it together in January: played 34 minutes/game and every Bulls game but one, put up 20 points a game, shot 34% from 3, showed "the old explosiveness", "the vintage Rose", "MVP caliber", etc. You could talk yourself into Rose knocking off the rust and rounding into form... and then the calendar flipped to February. 3P% cratered, taking scoring average with it. He did start drawing fouls and passing adequately, but the trend was lost. A point guard who can't shoot at all can't play in the modern NBA, just ask Dallas. If Rose hadn't knocked the rust off 46 games in, he was never going to.
And Chicago Doesn't Need Him
As mentioned above, the Bulls are amazingly only +0.2 on/off for Rose and they're playing Aaron Brooks (who has played less NBA defense than you and me) and Kirk Hinrich (who is visibly aging on the court). Reassigning Rose's brutally inefficient touches to the rest of the starters can be done very easily. Butler, Gasol, and Noah can all handle significantly more touches and playmaking responsibility. Chicago's problem is still on the wing, where they have nobody beyond Butler and intelligently made 0 moves to address that at the trade deadline where literally every team in the NBA and several from the NBDL got in on the action. It's not clear if they could have gotten Afflalo because the Nuggets made that trade with the express intent of getting worse, but they could have gotten somebody. They weren't a championship contender with Rose, they won't get much better or worse with him gone, him being back next year won't make a significant difference.
He's a league average point guard.
Derrick Rose won the MVP in 2011. I have described this award as a "sham" in the past and I will go into greater detail. Since the media began voting on the MVP in 1980, only three men have won it without being on a top two team in either conference: Moses Malone 1982, Michael Jordan 1988, Steve Nash 2006. Thus, in any given year it only makes sense to look at the top two teams in each conference unless something really incredible happens. The relevant teams from 2011 and their best players that year, followed by their ranks in Win Shares, Wins Produced, VORP Wins, and On/Off among these four:
Chicago Bulls - Derrick Rose (3, 4, 2, 4 = 13)
Miami Heat - LeBron James (1, 1, 1, 3 = 6)
San Antonio Spurs - Manu Ginobili (4, 3, 4, 1 = 12)
Los Angeles Lakers - Pau Gasol (2, 2, 3, 2 = 9)
And now you can see why Rose won. Not for any winning case on his part, but simply because the voters didn't want to give the award to any of the other three. LeBron was dealing with Decision fallout, Manu couldn't get any traction because many voters still (inexplicably) believed Parker to be a more important Spur, same story for Pau and Kobe (who comically got a first place vote). Rose was the only option because of pre-existing biases. He was the best player on an elite team, and that's not nothing, but it's not MVP either. For some reason people frequently claim Dwight Howard had the best stats that year, but if you put him in the above mixer his ranks would be 3, 1, 4, 4. It made and still makes zero sense to advocate for Howard's worse stats on the fourth place Magic over LeBron's better stats on the second place Heat.
And that was his only good year. His only All-NBA team, his only year with 10+ WS, his only playoff series wins. One good but overhyped year, that's it.
He Was Terrible This Year
A lot of people will use FIBA as a kind of totem. If a player does better than expected, he was awesome in FIBA and that experience was a springboard for him. If a player does worse, his experience in FIBA is totally ignored. Sometimes this happens both ways for one player in the same year: playing for Team USA had really matured DeMarcus Cousins, he's trying on defense now, oops they fired the coach and he's a bum again, let us never speak of FIBA again. Most people can't be bothered to actually check the FIBA stats, but I can. Derrick Rose was awful. He shot 3 for 22 on jump shots, that robust .136 wouldn't even be a good batting average let alone field goal percentage. His 0.21 Win Shares were the worst on the team, somehow worse than Andre Drummond who only played 46 minutes. Every player on the team had .150+ WS/48 except for Rose's .048. He played the 7th most minutes and had the most turnovers.
Everything about his FIBA was bad. (For the record, he was also terrible in FIBA 2010, with the 9th most WS in the 2nd most MP.) And pretty much everything about it transferred over to his NBA year. These Bulls play at a much faster pace than the 2011 versions, but if we look at pace corrected stats we see that his turnovers are up, his assists are way down, his jump shot is broken and to make matters worse he's relying on it more than ever. His %s at the rim, from 16-23, and from 3 in 2011 were 61%, 40%, and 33%. These are workable %s. Not good, but if you're drawing fouls and making passes they can work. This year they were at 55%, 39%, and 29%, and to top it all off he's drawing fouls at 65% of the rate he did in 2011.
This aggregate badness is reflected in his aggregate stats: WS/48 at a below average .05, VORP at a replacement level 0.2, on/off at an unbelievably low +0.2 given that his replacements are mainly Aaron Brooks and Kirk Hinrich.
He Wasn't Getting Better
This is the biggest problem, and the fact that there are bigger problems than shooting friggin' 29% from 3 is scary enough. After missing games and playing poorly when he played at all, Rose seemed to put it together in January: played 34 minutes/game and every Bulls game but one, put up 20 points a game, shot 34% from 3, showed "the old explosiveness", "the vintage Rose", "MVP caliber", etc. You could talk yourself into Rose knocking off the rust and rounding into form... and then the calendar flipped to February. 3P% cratered, taking scoring average with it. He did start drawing fouls and passing adequately, but the trend was lost. A point guard who can't shoot at all can't play in the modern NBA, just ask Dallas. If Rose hadn't knocked the rust off 46 games in, he was never going to.
And Chicago Doesn't Need Him
As mentioned above, the Bulls are amazingly only +0.2 on/off for Rose and they're playing Aaron Brooks (who has played less NBA defense than you and me) and Kirk Hinrich (who is visibly aging on the court). Reassigning Rose's brutally inefficient touches to the rest of the starters can be done very easily. Butler, Gasol, and Noah can all handle significantly more touches and playmaking responsibility. Chicago's problem is still on the wing, where they have nobody beyond Butler and intelligently made 0 moves to address that at the trade deadline where literally every team in the NBA and several from the NBDL got in on the action. It's not clear if they could have gotten Afflalo because the Nuggets made that trade with the express intent of getting worse, but they could have gotten somebody. They weren't a championship contender with Rose, they won't get much better or worse with him gone, him being back next year won't make a significant difference.
He's a league average point guard.
