Valuable.

Player.

Chicago Bulls G Derrick Rose will likely get the NBA's Most Valuable Player award ... and with good reason.

When you put those three words together into an award that NBA players strive to get every year, the one word that gets too commonly misinterpreted is “valuable”.  Sometimes, the award goes to the best player on the best team in the league – completely justifiable in many cases (see any of the five MVP trophies Michael Jordan won).

Sometimes, the award goes to the best player on one particular team (not necessarily of the league) – see James, Lebron (2009) and Garnett, Kevin (2004).  Can you accept it as a fan?  Maybe.  Is it justifiable?  Not always.

This year, the MVP award will most likely go to Derrick Rose which applies to both prior reasons for winning an MVP award.  No matter why Rose gets the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award, the 22-year-old point guard from the South Side of Chicago deserves it more than any other player in the league.  If Michael Jordan, Doc Rivers AND Phil Jackson all believe that, then it’s good enough for me.

Derrick Rose’s 2010 has been beyond spectacular.  Looking across all of Rose’s numbers, you’ll find career highs in points (24.9 – leads all point guards), assists (7.8 – top 10 in the NBA) and rebounds (4.3 – second to Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook & the Mavericks’ Jason Kidd).  The one number that stands out is Rose’s improved three point shooting – which currently stands at 33%.  Rose was always the kind of player that has no problem getting to the hole off the dribble, but his shooting HAD BEEN a liability.  I say had been because he is simply deadly if he has an open look – not Michael Jordan deadly, but give the kid a few more seasons.

In the “Off-season of LeBron”, the Bulls decided to spend their max money on F Carlos Boozer, and with Boozer and Noah, Rose and the Bulls had a dominant inside game to go with a rising backcourt star.  Of course, Boozer and Noah started the season injured, but the Bulls didn’t miss a beat because of Rose’s increasing skills.

Boozer missed the entire first month of the season, and Derrick Rose averaged 24.8 in the month of November with 6 games of 30+.  Joakim Noah went down on December 18-th and Rose became the thorn in everyone’s sides, again – averaging 24.0 and keying big wins against Boston, Miami and Orlando in that stretch.

Some, like Yahoo! Contributor Daniel Barber, point to Derrick Rose’s low Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of 23.01 and invalidate him as an NBA Most Valuable Player candidate.  To him and people with that opinion, I can only say how amazingly uneducated that argument is.  Look past the stats and see what Rose does with his team.

Rose’s main competition will likely come from Lebron James and the Miami Heat – which is about as lopsided of a matchup as Matt Damon’s first encounter with Teddy KGB in “Rounders”.  I can’t brush aside Lebron’s performance this year (26 pts, 7 rebs, 7 asts.), but I can say with complete conviction that Lebron shouldn’t get the Maurice Podoloff Trophy.  Why?  Because he plays with Dwyane Wade AND Chris Bosh – two other top-20 NBA superstars.  If you take Lebron James away from Miami, how bad would the Heat be?  Compare that to what would happen if Derrick Rose weren’t playing with the Bulls.  There’s no contest.  Here’s another important stat to point out (that constantly gets hammered home):

• Derrick Rose’s Bulls: 23-12 vs. teams over .500
• Lebron James Heat: 20-20 (including three losses to both Chicago AND Boston)

James can’t be the NBA MVP without beating Rose and the Bulls at least once.  James can’t be the MVP when his team is 2-8 in games decided by 3 points or less (the kind of games that an MVP wills his team to win).  Let’s not forget that James can’t be the MVP when you consider Rose’s Bulls have a better record than the Miami Heat.

No matter how good LeBron has been this year, he'll be looking up in the MVP standings at Mr. Rose.

Take the last five minutes of the Bulls 87-86 win against Miami two weeks ago.  When Derrick Rose scored six of Chicago’s final 11 points of that game, who came up the big hero of the game for Miami?  Mario Chalmers.  Granted, James had the assist on Chalmers’ points, but in the final five minutes of the game, should your MVP candidate be handing off to a player who was anointed the same position that Rajon Rondo did when the Big Three was assembled in Boston and failed miserably?

In all of Miami’s losses of three points or less, James is 1-7 from the field (including a highly contested lay-up in the aforementioned loss).  This year, Rose has just been a much more clutch player than James, and that makes him a more valid choice than Lebron.

I can go on and on as to why Lebron can’t be the MVP, but why gloat when I’ve already made my point.  At the end of the season, no matter what beach a certain player took his talents to in the offseason, Lebron’s name on the NBA Most Valuable Player trophy would be a name that’s not sweeter than Derrick Rose – the most deserving name.

(I don’t care what you Gleeks think.  Caan should have won that award for Hawaii Five-O, and I’ll take that opinion to my grave.  In fact, I might just have it put on my headstone.)

Moving on, there was some justice at the Grammys as uber-pop sensation Justin Beiber didn’t win one award the entire night — which not only made me giddy on a level that defies description, but reaffirms my faith in the higher ups in music.

With the All-Star Break this weekend, now is a good time for every sportswriter with a computer to come up with his or her own choices for mid-season awards — a concept that sometimes doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s fun for sparking debates among my TBS cohorts.

This column probably mimics the Golden Globes more than the Oscars because let’s face it.  Taking Back Sports has a mandatory three drink minimum.

Mid-Season MVP

Derrick Rose, Chicago Bulls

Derrick Rose has been carrying the Bulls through injuries to Carlos Boozer & Joakim Noah.

Another one of my awards show rules of thumb applies to this.  If two guys from the same show/movie are up for the same award, they take votes from each other.  With that rule established, my vote does not go to Lebron James or Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat.

Take either one of those guys off that team, and the Heat don’t lose much of a step.  Are they the same team that’s 13 games over .500?  No, but the team is still damn impressive.

Rose has led the Bulls to a 37-16 record, ten games over .500, and he did so with power forward Carlos Boozer out for the first month of the season.  The Bulls lost center Joakim Noah in mid-December due to thumb surgery, but with the way Rose has been playing (24 ppg, 8 apg, 4 rpg), it didn’t seem to matter much.

Noah is scheduled to return to the Bulls right after the All-Star break, and Chicago is only two and a half games behind Boston and Miami for the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference.  If Rose is already playing this well now, what do you think is going to happen when he has the full cast for the first time all season?

Mid-Season Rookie of the Year

Blake Griffin, Los Angeles Clippers

Griffin leads all NBA rookies in points, rebounds and posterizations.

This is quite possibly the easiest award I’m going to hand out in this column.  Griffin leads all rookies in points per game (23) and rebounds per game (13).  He shoots 51% from the field — a probable byproduct of his being second in the league in dunks.

Griffin was the Rookie of the Year before this season even started, and he has been every bit as advertised when the Clippers made him the #1 pick last year.  A stress fracture in his left knee ended his season, and I guess Blake was a little upset about that.  Poor Danilo Gallinari.  He was just one of the many individuals who felt the stored up anger brooding inside of Mr. Griffin.

It’s too bad that the Clippers never pay for free agents or do anything that makes sense to better the team.  (Thanks, Donald Sterling.) We’ll see you as a member of the Dallas Mavericks in a few years, Blake.  Until then, enjoy your time with the NBA’s minor league team.

Mid-Season Biggest Surprise

Portland Trailblazers

Don't look so bashful, LaMarcus. Portland is playing well through injuries, and you are why.

With all do respect to my hometown Philadelphia 76ers who are 27-29 and the Memphis Grizzlies who are 31-26, my vote goes to the injury-laden Portland Trailblazers.  (If I wanted to be cheap and tacky, I’d hitch my wagon to the 46-9 San Antonio Spurs, but I’m not gonna do that.  Seriously, who saw THAT coming!)

No Greg Oden. (again)

No Marcus Camby.

No Brandon Roy.

Somehow this team is still 32-24 with the #5 seed in the west.  Those of you in the Pacific Northwest have LaMarcus Aldridge and his 22 and 9 average to thank for that.  If any other big men (or Brandon Roy for that matter) had working knees on this team, Portland could easily be top-3 in the West — because they’d have the size that the current #3, Oklahoma City, doesn’t have.

Roy was supposed to return to action yesterday against the Hornets, but Portland is being careful with him, so they’re just going to bring him back on the 23rd against the Lakers along with Camby.

At four games behind the Thunder in both the Western Conference and the Northwest Division, Portland could become pretty daunting if they’re completely healthy.  But if you know anything about the Trailblazers, that’s a big IF.

Mid-Season Biggest Disappointment

Milwaukee Bucks

I guess carrying that new contract around has hindered Salmons' numbers. Points and FG% are both down.

Last year, I absolutely fell in love with Bucks point guard Brandon Jennings.  In a league that already has Derrick Rose, Chris Paul and Rajon Rondo, Brandon Jennings was that added little cherry on a delightful piece of point guard cake.

With Jennings and Bogut, the Bucks had a solid nucleus to build around, and they did so with Corey Maggette — a move I didn’t quite understand since I don’t remember Maggette being any good anywhere he’s been in this league.  About the only thing I remember about Maggette’s gameplay is a lot of isolation and a lot of horrible shots — not a good thing when Jennings needs to be the focal point of your offense.

Unfortunately, Maggette’s tendencies continued, and his injury problems have led to the Bucks’ underwhelming record of 21-34 when they finished a surprising ten games over .500 last season and a playoff spot for the first time since the ’05-’06 season.

It also doesn’t help that John Salmons’ points are down from 20 to about 14, and his FG% is down by nearly ten percent.  Jennings’ points per game is also down.  Now I’m not saying that these are directly related to Maggette’s arrival, but I am saying that it doesn’t help his case as a piece to this puzzle.

I know there are several hundred other awards that get handed out but they seem a little pointless sometimes — especially this season.  Coach of the Year?  Gregg Popovich — Spurs are 46-9 for goodness sakes.  Sixth Man of the Year?  Glen Davis, Boston Celtics: 11 points, 5 rebounds and unbelievable energy off the bench.

Of course, we all have our own opinions, and what is that colorful saying about opinions and that little crack between a person’s butt cheeks?

After a rather long hiatus through much of baseball season, Jack Bauer is back in wake of the NCAA’s announcement yesterday that the Memphis Tigers basketball team will be vacating its 38 wins and National Championship Game appearance from the 2007-08 season, and he is fuming.

(For the record, I am very much a fan of baseball, but watching one of the several fourth-rate reality shows is far more entertaining than watching the Padres, and I only get to see a handful of Dodgers games on TV, so that basically leaves everything else going in baseball to write about. But Dr. Sportsfan and the other fine writers of Taking Back Sports do such a good job of covering baseball that I kind of got lazy this summer.)

Nothing in sports gets me involved more in intelligent and heated conversations than the NCAA, a regime more corrupt and incompetent than Kim Jong Il’s North Korea. Jack will never miss a chance to strike blows at the NCAA, and the latest news out of  its fortress gives me the perfect opportunity to air it all out right here, right now!

So in case you missed it, the Memphis basketball team’s 2007-08 season doesn’t count because Derrick Rose (just come out with it, NCAA — everyone knows it’s him thanks to the swarming sports media) decided he didn’t feel like taking the SAT, so Rose had a stand-in take the SAT for him. This meant Rose was ineligible for NCAA sports and Memphis played the entire season with an ineligible player.

Derrick Rose didn't need a stand-in to take his shots while playing college ball at Memphis.

Note to Memphis athletic department: I know you have a ton of athletes you are responsible for, but it might not be a bad idea to make sure your prize recruits do all the necessary things to make sure they are eligible to play, including taking the SAT, a longtime staple of college admissions. Come on Memphis, even USC isn’t stupid enough to let that happen! (More on USC later.)

Besides Memphis fans, this news sickens no one more than myself, who watched in person my beloved UCLA team fall to Memphis in San Antonio at the Final Four, primarily due to the flawless play of Rose. But, Memphis did not win the national title, otherwise, based on the NCAA’s history of disciplinary action, this would be a non-story.

Historically the NCAA, especially in basketball but also football, avoids stripping universities of National Championships in major sports, but will  force teams to vacate wins in non-championship seasons. Let’s review:

Jerry Tarkanian’s battles with the NCAA are well known to many sports fans. Although he won money in settlements after he retired, it was not due to wrongful termination, but rather a violation of due process. UNLV broke several NCAA rules under Tark’s tenure, that is not disputed, but through the 1980s and 1990s UNLV was one of the NCAA’s flagship hoops programs and won a national title in 1990. Thus no punishment. Meanwhile, Tark’s previous school, Long Beach State, was sanctioned after he left and Fresno State, where Tark went after UNLV, was sanctioned following his retirement in 2002.

Tark hit the bull’s-eye when he alleged that the “NCAA was more willing to punish less-prominent schools than big-name schools.”

The story of Michigan basketball’s “Fab Five” is well documented (images of Chris Webber spring to everyone’s mind). Both of their Final Four seasons were vacated due to major NCAA infractions and the banners are locked away on the University of Michigan campus, forbidden to be displayed to the world.

Ohio State was forced to vacate its 1999  Final Four run due to the actions of former coach Jim O’Brien, although recently the NCAA reversed itself and Ohio State once again has that Final Four banner hanging in the rafters.

The O.J. Mayo saga at USC is still under investigation. USC has been caught up in multiple NCAA investigations recently, but expect Troy to suffer some sort of punishment for this incident at some point in the near future. (After all, it involves only USC basketball, not football.) Tim Floyd was forced to be the fall man and resign in hopes that the NCAA would back down from this. He couldn’t escape Los Angeles for Tucson fast enough. Too bad for him the University of Arizona suspected foul.

For those who are ambitious, feel free to research deeper into NCAA basketball and football, violations, and the pattern will hold-up: actual punishment for teams that did not win national titles, a bind eye turned towards teams that won national titles.

Now for football. (Being a UCLA grad I cannot resist, but everything that I say about USC is true and is intended to demonstrate two things: (1) the hypocrisy of the NCAA and (2) that its first priority is money and not the integrity of all college sports. Only small-time programs have to follow every rule to the letter.)

Currently, the NCAA is “investigating” the Reggie Bush issue of illegal benefits while at USC, along with violations at Florida State under Bobby Bowden.

First, Bowden. The NCAA is contemplating stripping FSU of all of its wins during the 2006 and 2007 seasons, which would affect Bowden’s chase — along with with Penn State’s Joe Paterno — for the most all-time wins by a Division I head coach. The latest report from ESPN on Thursday afternoon was that the NCAA is considering allowing a compromise that would strip the university of the wins, but not Bowden, keeping him one win shy of Paterno.

What the $@!&??????

Allow Jack to clear this up for you. Florida State went 7-6 in 2006 and in 2007 and was hardly a factor in the national championship picture. Florida State football has been on a steady decline this decade and right now is not a major player for the NCAA, other than the national interest in the battle between Bowden and Paterno. Simply stripping FSU football of 14 wins in a non-title season is not a big deal for the NCAA, but to knock Bowden back to 15 games behind Paterno is bad for business and hurts TV ratings and advertisers’ interest in games involving both schools.

“It’s All About the Benjamins.”

Now for USC, NCAA National Champions in 2004 and AP National Champions in 2003. The Bush controversy has dragged on for years. Simply put, by the NCAA’s own rules, if they formally rule Bush received illegal benefits in 2004, then he is an ineligible player and USC played with an ineligible player the entire 2004 season. That would mean the NCAA would at least have to strip USC of its national championship.

Where would the NCAA be today if it consistently enforced its rules and did not overlook violations by big-time programs such as USC football, which generate millions of dollars of annual revenue?

Bush received the benefits, everyone knows it. USC no longer associates with Bush and has continued to deny him sideline tickets, while O.J. Simpson was invited into the locker room for a pregame speech. I’m not passing judgment on Simpson, but the fact that USC welcomes Simpson with open arms while running from Bush is very telling.

The NCAA doesn’t want USC to lose its national championship for obvious reasons. There is no NFL team in Los Angeles and there hasn’t been since the 1994 season. Over the past 15 seasons, USC has become synonymous with football in Los Angeles. USC has had all the star power with Carson Palmer, Matt Leinhart, Bush, Rey Maualugua, etc. and has consistently been a factor on the national stage.

There is no major college football program in New York, which leaves Los Angeles as the largest market for NCAA football in the country. UCLA is not even close to USC’s rear-view mirror in terms of college football influence in Los Angeles, which leaves USC football as the only program that matters for the NCAA in its largest market, and in turn possibly the biggest revenue generator for the entire NCAA.

It would be sheer stupidity on the level of NHL Commish Gary Bettman for the NCAA to drop the hammer on USC football for an obvious violation and risk losing millions of dollars. USC basketball, well that’s a different story, and provides the NCAA with the means to punish USC athletics without hurting its revenue darling, the USC football program.

While I personally feel it would be ridiculous for the NCAA to strip USC of a national title over the issue of Bush accepting illegal gifts, as opposed to much more serious issues like academics or substance abuse, rules are rules. Just ask any school in the NCAA that ever broke a rule and wasn’t fortunate enough to win a national championship that same season.

Before I depart, a special thanks to Mario Chalmers for giving us a moment sports fan will never forget, making that three pointer at the buzzer to send the 2008 National Championship into overtime. Without you, Memphis would have won it all and they would be “investigating” Memphis and Derrick Rose’s failure to take the SAT for decades, just like they are still “investigating” USC and Reggie Bush.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the NCAA! The same organization that claims to have a championship for football. Booya! (I couldn’t help myself, I can’t write an entire article about the NCAA without taking a jab at the BCS.)