Derrick Rose Crowned Youngest NBA MVP Ever, Age 22; Joins Exclusive List of Player-Coach Duos

Today, Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls was (finally) announced as the winner of the regular season MVP. The voting was not close whatsoever, although there were some questionable votes. Rose received 113 votes for 1st place, while Lebron James received 4 votes and Dwight Howard got 3. Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant finished in fourth and fifth place respectively, but that can only mean that each got 2 and 1 vote. The MVP award is voted on by members of the sports media, so that can only mean that 9 idiots in Miami, Orlando, LA, and OKC chose not to vote for Rose. I'd like to know who those 9 idiot sportswriters are, because there votes all disqualify them from making any intelligent arguments about sports ever again.

Derrick Rose was the only candidate to win MVP, a fact that Stan Van Gundy, coach of the Orlando Magic, really despised. Van Gundy felt that the media had already made up their minds months in advance about Rose winning MVP and were biased against Dwight Howard, which quite frankly, is absolutely true. But it wasn't a negative thing towards Howard, it was just simply an acknowledgment that Derrick Rose was the unquestioned MVP for the regular season and that it would take some kind of miracle for another player to start playing at his level.

It really all starts with comparing season averages in the big three categories, Points Per Game, Rebounds Per Game, and Assists Per Game.

Derrick Rose: 25.0 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 7.7 APG
LeBron James: 26.7 PPG, 7.5 RPG, 7.0 APG
Dwight Howard: 22.9 PPG, 14.1 RPG, 1.4 APG
Kobe Bryant: 25.3 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 4.7 APG
Kevin Durant: 27.7 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 2.7 APG

Of these players, the clear leader just on statistics is obviously LeBron. Kevin Durant should not be in the MVP conversation, playing the same position as James, but averaging 4.3 fewer APG. Kobe actually averaged more PPG (barely) and RPG than Rose, but 3 fewer APG, very crucial  since they both play the same position. By that logic, the conversation is now down to Lebron 1st, Rose 2nd, and Howard 3rd, with his measly 22.9 PPG, very low for a center and star player. His assists don't matter as much since his position is never expected to pass; centers are finishers. He did manage to average a double-double this season, but the PPG is just far too low given his importance on his team.

So now the race is down to LeBron and Rose. Just statistically speaking, LeBron is the clear winner between them. But now we need to evaluate their performance this year compared to last year. Here's last year's statistics:

Derrick Rose: 20.8 PPG, 3.8 RPG, 6.0 APG
LeBron James: 29.7 PPG, 7.3 RPG, 8.6 RPG

Here, we can clearly see that Rose definitively improved as a player while LeBron declined somewhat, averaging 3 fewer PPG and 1.6 fewer APG. Now it becomes clear that even though Rose's numbers were not as good as LeBron's, he improved while James declined. The next statistic is seeing how their teams compared from the previous year to this year.

Bulls 2009-10 Record: 41 Wins, 41 Losses
Bulls 2010-11 Record: 62 Wins, 20 Losses
Cavaliers 2009-10 Record: 61 Wins, 21 Losses
Heat 2009-10 Record: 47 Wins, 35 Losses
Heat 2010-11 Record: 58 Wins, 24 Losses

In the case of LeBron, he changed teams, so you must compare his Cavaliers team along with the Heat team of last year. The Bulls improved by 21 wins, while the Heat improved by 11 wins. LeBron's Cavaliers team, despite the impressive record, actually lost one more game than Rose's 2010-11 Bulls.

At this point, Rose now has the advantage. The final statistic that seals the deal is the season series between the Bulls and Heat.

3-0, Bulls

Well that was simple. That's right, out of 3 tries, the Heat won zero games against the Bulls, including the one at Miami. Before it all becomes definitive, there's one bonus stat to compare: How each played in their games against each other.

Derrick Rose: 28.6 PPG, 3.3 RPG, 6.3 APG
LeBron James: 27.5 PPG, 9.0 RPG, 5.5 APG

In their season series, Rose actually scored 3 more PPG in exchange for getting less RPG and APG, but that was mostly caused by the outlier of Game 3 where Rose got only 1 rebound, otherwise, he would have averaged 4.5 RPG, higher than his season average. LeBron scored about the same PPG, while rebounding much more than he usually does, but assisting less. What makes their season stats significant is that even though for all intents and purposes James played better than Rose, the Bulls still won. This means that Rose was more (wait for it) VALUABLE for his team than James was! That's why the award is for Most Valuable Player, not Best Overall Player.

Derrick Rose winning the MVP award just two days after Tom Thibodeau won Coach of the Year makes it only the 12th time in NBA history that a player and coach have won their two highest awards, joining an exclusive club of such legendary duos like Tim Duncan & Gregg Popovich, Michael Jordan & Phil Jackson, Magic Johnson & Pat Riley, and Bill Russell & Red Auerbach. He does however, join the list of dubious duos like LeBron James & Mike Brown (horrible decision for coach of the year), Steve Nash & Mike D'Antoni (how the hell Nash won MVP twice is beyond me and a coach that can't teach defense), Allen Iverson & Larry Brown (their relationship is legendary only for its heatedness), and Dave Cowens (who?) & Tom Heinsohn (who?).

Hopefully Rose will go on to become a legendary MVP, and not join the likes of Dave Cowens, probably the most undeserving MVP ever, winning his award in between years that Kareem won MVP, preventing him from winning the award 3 consecutive years and Dirk Nowitzki, who infamously won the MVP award after his team had been eliminated in the playoffs by the Golden State Warriors in the greatest playoff upset of all time.