Erick Blasco Posted March 23, 2011 Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 Ten years ago, Allen Iverson was awarded the MVP trophy over Shaquille O’Neal. His 31.1 points per game were the best in the league, and Philadelphia’s run to the best record in the Eastern Conference was a major surprise. AI was the face of a franchise that was utterly devoid of any other faces. It only made sense that the voters embraced the small, dynamic guard who led his team to unexpected heights. But dig a little deeper into the numbers and the selection appears a little dubious to say the least. The Sixers were a team that won games with their defense, not their offense. They featured a roster of defensively skilled players such as Dikembe Mutombo, Theo Ratliff and Eric Snow (all three won All-NBA Defensive team honors during their careers). The role players were defensively oriented as well. Outside of Iverson, there wasn’t much offensive talent to be seen. For crying out loud, Theo Ratliff was the team’s second leading scorer with a whopping 12 points per game. The result was a team that choked off the opposition, and relied on Allen Iverson to create enough offense to win games, and so he did. The Sixers' offense was merely average but in this case, average was enough. This year, the Chicago Bulls are following the same blueprint. They are tied for first with Boston for the best defense in the league. They, like the 2001 Sixers, have one of the best defensive center rotations in the league with Joakim Noah and the underrated Omer Asik. They also have very solid defenders on the wings with Luol Deng and Ronnie Brewer. The team has essentially built a great defensive squad so it can hold opponents to a very low point total and ask Derrick Rose to simply generate enough offense for himself and teammates to win the game, and like Iverson, Rose has done so quite successfully. Statistically they both carried similar offensive loads for their teams: Player Points Assists Points Generated Team Points % of Team Pts Generated Allen Iverson 31.1 4.6 42.6 94.7 45.0% Derrick Rose 24.9 7.8 44.4 98.5 45.1% Iverson was almost purely a scorer that year, averaging only 4.6 assists while Rose has done a better job of blending his scoring with the distributing duties of a traditional point guard. While they may have gone about it in a slightly different manner, the results are strikingly similar in that each player generated roughly 45% of their team's offense via the shot and pass. Even the advanced statistics show many similarities as well: Player PER eFG% TS% TOV% USG% Off Win Shares Def Win Shares Win Shares WS/48 Min Allen Iverson 24.0 44.7% 51.8% 10.0 35.9 7.3 4.5 11.8 0.190 Derrick Rose 23.3 48.0% 54.0% 12.9 32.4 6.8 4.3 11.1 0.201 They both have similar PERs, usage rates and Win Shares (both offensively and defensively). Rose is a slightly more efficient scorer than Iverson was, but he is also a little more turnover prone. The end result is that both players produced similarly for their teams. Given the similarities between the two situations and results, it would only seem reasonable for Rose to win the MVP award like Iverson did. But did Iverson deserve to win that MVP in the first place? While no advanced stat is perfect, history has shown that PER and Win Shares are highly correlated with the MVP award (as they should be). After all, if a player is efficient and contributes wins, then he is doing something right. Almost every MVP over the last dozen seasons has been in the top 5 in Win Shares and PER. However, Iverson was ranked 7th and 10th respectively. Meanwhile Rose is currently ranked 12th and 6th respectively. By these two statistics neither player appears to be MVP worthy. Both appear to be benefitting from their team's record (which voters tend to weigh heavily) and the fact that they put up great offensive numbers on teams that won with defense. Neither player was a great defender either. http://www.silverscreenandroll.com/2011/3/23/2068061/dwight-howard-should-win-mvp-because-weve-been-through-this-before 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Penny Posted March 23, 2011 Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 Just did a little research Team Player Points Assists Points Generated Team Points % of Team Pts Generated 2009-10 Cleveland Cavaliers LeBron James 29.7 8.6 46.9 45.9% ----Although they were better offensively than the 76ers and Bulls, they still were a defensive minded team with a defensive minded coach who generated most of their offense from LeBron James. Those teams were built up for role players who couldn't survive without Ivertson (Look how well the Cavs are doing this year, allthough they aren't as healthy as they would like to be, and are missing pieces from last year). The Bulls have a legit 2nd option that the Cavs lacked (Until Twan, although he could've played better) and the 76ers lacked. But Iverson, Bron and Rose were still incredibly valuable to a team that was essentially a gang of role players. The defense may have 'choked teams to death', but if you lock teams down defensively and can't do shit on offense you'll never get far, ask the Charlotte Bobcats. I'm not going to look into the advanced statistics since I'm tired and ill and don't like them too much, someone else can do that and prove me wrong if they like Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cavamatic Posted April 8, 2011 Report Share Posted April 8, 2011 IMO, yes, he has set the Bulls up for everything. Without him, the Bulls wouldn't be close to where they are now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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