This guy has raised douchey-ness to another level. His prediction of the Heat running roughshod over other teams will not come to fruition and now he has resorted to hating on the Bulls, especially D-Rose.

I know being a Bulls fan does make me biased, but when you have a large majority of writers, coaches, analysts and players saying D-Rose should be the MVP, that does lend some credence to the argument.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/28/2 ... -rose.html

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RFDC thinks I'm retarded.

i think tard wants to be "the man" covering "the team" so bad, he has lost all rationality.

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He's just part of the grand ESPN machine that is trying to create a story out of the MVP race. The media doesn't want Rose to run away with it, because that doesn't lead to any interesting articles. The fact is that Rose is a near lock to win this award. Unless Miami makes a run and overtakes the Bulls as the #1 seed, Rose will win.

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This

plus, in a company of douches, LeBetard is in the top 5

I laughed pretty hard at this piece. He tried way too hard and just sounded even dumber than his usual self.

He needs to keep focusing his time and attention on his orange hue and permed chest hair and not writing

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"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."

From an advanced stats perspective though, DRose isn't at the top or even in the top 5. I think he's hovering around 8th in both PER (player efficiency rating) and EWA (estimated wins added). LBJ is on top in both.

I don't think it's a clear runaway for Rose. Both DaWhite and LBJ are statistically having a much better year. I also think the Bulls have a better all-around team than either the Magic or the Heat, which doesn't help DRose.

But Rose certainly has a better story and is perceived as carrying this team on his back, so he probably will win. It also comes back to what the definition of the MVP is. Since MJ didn't win it every year, I can only assume most people don't view it as the best player, so the hard part is determining what people are using to vote.

I look at the race by pretending what each team would be like if you subtracted that player. The Heat would still be a 3rd-5th seed without Lebron on that team. Yes, he is a great player, but Wade would be picking up more of the slack if Lebron was not there. If you subtract Rose from the Bulls, they are probably still a playoff team, but they would probably be somewhere in the 6th-8th range. Including all the injuries they dealt with this season on the front line, they could even be out of the playoffs if Rose wasn't there. That's why I think you have to give it to him.

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The Magic would be fucking awful if you subtracted DaWhite. He is dominant on both end of the floors for him. Without him, they are Cav-like IMO.

And you don't have to "pretend." EWA is "estimated wins added," which is a stat that intends to do just that. Rose is 7th.

LeBetard was on with Silvy the other day and he came off as a total homer-ish clown. It was good radio fodder and you could even hear the guys chuckling in the background while this fool was speaking. Good times.

Does that stat take into account the production that Wade and Bosh are sacrificing simply so Lebron can get his touches? For baseball, that stat (WAR) seems a little more clear cut, but how do you account for some of the teamwork that is built into the game of basketball?

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Sort of. It's supposed to be the WAR of basketball:

PER: Player Efficiency Rating is the overall rating of a player's per-minute statistical production. The league average is 15.00 every season.

VA: Value Added - the estimated number of points a player adds to a team’s season total above what a 'replacement player' (for instance, the 12th man on the roster) would produce. Value Added = ([Minutes * (PER - PRL)] / 67). PRL (Position Replacement Level) = 11.5 for power forwards, 11.0 for point guards, 10.6 for centers, 10.5 for shooting guards and small forwards

EWA: Estimated Wins Added - Value Added divided by 30, giving the estimated number of wins a player adds to a team’s season total above what a 'replacement player' would produce.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/hollinge ... statistics

I don't buy those stat lines. Rose has the Bulls at the top of the East (most people thought they would be 4-6) even though the Bulls 2nd and 3rd best players have missed over 60 games. If Bosh and Wade missed a combined 60 games how good would Miami be? I also think it's a lot easier to be efficient when you have 2 all stars playing next to you every game. Dwight Howard loses a little credit in my book because there are no great centers in the NBA. If you go back 15 to 20 years ago he wouldn't be considered a great center. Rose is playing in a PG dominant era and right now he is the cream.

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That's a pretend stat too. Douchebag is just as likely to be correct as that one.

How many EWA did Carmelo and Billups add to Denver before the trade?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Yea, I mean if you guys have better stats, go ahead and throw them out. I'd be curious.

I'm just not buying how this stat works in the game of basketball. Too many things would change if you take Lebron off that team that statistics can't account for. The whole system the team is running could be different. It's not the same as just plugging someone different in at 2nd base in baseball.

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Well obviously it isn't 100% accurate. The 'e' is for 'estimated.' But again, it at least puts everyone on the same playing field, and take it out of the "eye-test" world.

LeBron's a douche and all but he didn't have Bosh and Wade in Cleveland and he still won more games the last 2 seasons there than he will with the Heat this year. Dude's a talent Vampire and thankfully there wasn't anyone in Cleveland he could make much worse. Wouldn't surprise me if the Heat would have had better record if Bosh, or especially Wade, missed a lot of games.

He's not what most would consider a team guy. He likes to dominate the ball. There is a stat that shows the Heat are a better team when he isn't on the court with Bosh and Wade. That's because he hasn't figured out or may be unwilling to play together with star players.

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Bulls have a better record when they were picked to finish anywhere from 4th to 6th
Bulls 2nd and 3rd best players have missed 60 games
Rose is having a career year
LeBron's numbers are down almost across the board (even though he is taking the same amount of shots)
Derrick Rose led Bulls swept the season series
Bulls without Rose would be a lottery team
Heat without LeBron would still be a top 4 team

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Who ever would have thought that Dan Bernstein posted under the screen name "Bucky Chris?"

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Host of the weekly "We Fish ASA" podcast
Weekly columnist for the Northwest Herald
Bi-monthly columnist for Illinois Outdoor News magazine
Former host of The Outdoors Experience on WIND and The Great Outdoors on CLTV
http://www.wefishasa.com

I'm changing my screen name to the "WAR of basketball."

The Bulls were picked to finish 4th or 6th before the season started. That prediction was made with the assumption that the Bulls would be healthy. If any said Boozer and Noah would miss a combined 60+ games many people would have thought the Bulls would struggle to make the playoffs.

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People making bad/wrong predictions has nothing to do with who the best player is. Statistically, LBJ is a cut above the rest and Rose isn't really even top 5.

So they BULLS are a very good team. I agree.

That's not really a valid way to prove your point. There will always be a "best statistic" but it doesn't mean it's actually meaningful. That's really my biggest problem with the "statistics revolution" especially in regards to true team sports like basketball and football. Some people act like the best answer they could come up with is actually an answer because there isn't anything better like you did.

EWA seems bad but at least it's less bad than anything else!

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I like EWA much more than "Hova & Douchebag's gut feeling." It's definitely better.

I don't know too much about that WAR or PER but it sounds like a very flawed premise. It sort of works in baseball because you can isolate a guy's performances at bat or on the mound. Hoops is a team game. It also doesn't account for literally half of the game, defense. The stats on that are just not a very good indicator, as steals and blocks are not necessarily a good way to identify an elite defender. What about the guy that scores 25, but gives up 30? The box score will say he had a good night. Or the 10th man that routinely throws up a lot of numbers in garbage time.

There's just too much rhythm and flow in basketball that there is no good way to use individual stats to quantify.


Is a Rose coronation for MVP a little weak relative to history? Perhaps. There were a couple of years when Dirk and Nash won that I thought that the award could have gone elsewhere.

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

What did EWA say about Melo and Billups impact in Denver?

My guess is that both of them were considered pretty good EWA players.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I wouldn't exactly call my thoughts "gut feelings".

If you subtract Rose and Boozer/Noah (for 60 games) vs. Heat without Lebron:
Which team would be better? I would think 100% of people would answer Heat. Rose means that much to this team, that's why he's MVP. Lebron is the best player in the league, but I wouldn't consider him "Most Valuable" to his team. His team is still very good if he's not there. That isn't a "gut feeling".

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That's exactly the point, it's really hard to do. The stats are an attempt to have at it... that at the very bare minimum put everyone on an equal playing field.

Feel free to completely ignore the stats, I just personally don't see much compelling evidence to put DRose over LBJ and DaWhite who statistically (even the basic stats) had much better seasons.


And Steve Nash winning the MVP was a sham, IMO. Same as every year MJ didn't win it.