Derrick Rose scored fewer points in the NBA than Harrison Barnes and averaged fewer per game than Antoine Walker. Like Brandon Roy, another rising guard whose career was ravaged by injuries, he made only three All-Star teams. He never averaged eight assists or rated a particularly effective defender. Even at his peak, he was never a particularly effective scorer. Taken in isolation, these are things that would keep most players out of the Hall of Fame.
But Rose won MVP, and winning MVP, in basketball, is an automatic ticket to the Hall of Fame. Every MVP in NBA history is in the Hall of Fame except for the nine who played last season: LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid and Rose, who retired Thursday . . The first eight would be Hall of Fame locks with or without their trophies. Rose is the outlier here. He is generating debate because of the unusual arc his career has taken. He is the youngest MVP in NBA history. After his third season, he seemed destined to rank among the greatest point guards of all time. He tore his ACL in the opening game of the playoffs the following year and was never the same again.
There are no exact analogues for Rose in the Hall of Fame, but there are approximations. Bob McAdoo stands out. Like Rose, he won MVP at a very young age (23, in his third season). Like Rose, his prime was relatively short. He only made four All-Star teams. His individual numbers were better, and he benefited from winning championships with the Lakers late in his career. He had to wait a bit to get into the Hall of Fame – his induction came in 2000, 10 years after his retirement – but he did it anyway. Rose will too. He might not even have to wait.
This is not, contrary to what the tone of this story may imply, an argument against Rose making the Hall of Fame. Frankly, the Basketball Hall of Fame has made far more egregious mistakes. Everyone seems to be doing it. Mitch Richmond was a scorer who never averaged 26 points per game over a season and played in only 23 playoff games. He did it. Maurice Cheeks was a defender who never won Defensive Player of the Year (Defensive Player of the Year) or came close to averaging 20 points in a season. He did it. Michael Cooper never made an All-Star Team, but did make the Hall of Fame.
Rose at his peak was better than any of these players by a wide margin, and there’s something inherent to that in the name of the Hall itself. It is the Hall of Fameand if it continues to take these “Hall of Fame” candidates like Cheeks and Cooper, it almost has to take the player who has very clearly reached the “Fame” threshold even if he did so only briefly. Rose is the reason LeBron James hasn’t won five straight MVPs. That’s a level of historical importance Mitch Richmond never had a chance to reach. By the standard of Richmond’s induction, Rose has to do it.
But the standard is worth questioning, as other sports are notoriously less inclusive. It’s 14 NFL MVPs not at the moment in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, not including active players. That number there are 57 in baseball, though in fairness, the steroid era plays a big role in some of those potential snubs.
Of course, MVPs are not all created equal. A basketball player has much more power to affect a game or the outcome of a season than a baseball or football player does. Derrick Rose winning MVP in the NBA says a lot more about what kind of basketball player he was than, say, Shaun Alexander’s NFL MVP says about his own football career. When Alexander won MVP, he touched the ball about 24 times per game.
As a point of comparison, Jokic, the reigning MVP and winner of three of the last four, touched the ball more than 100 times per game on average. Success in football usually comes by committee. An offensive player cannot succeed without the help of his line. He needs other weapons to draw defensive attention away from him. Baseball is much more of an individual sport, but it is also egalitarian. The MVP doesn’t get to hit more often than the #9 hitter. In basketball, the best players can influence as many games as they want, and while they are certainly influenced by teammates, it is to a much lesser extent than it is in football. In short, winning an MVP in basketball definitely means more.
However, it’s not just long-serving MVPs who make the Basketball Hall of Fame. At least then there would apparently be a unifying standard: players who achieve a certain level of excellence, regardless of how long they maintain it, would stand as Hall of Fame caliber. But we also have to reckon with the Coopers and the Richmonds of the world, the eclectic group of very good players who are eventually and seemingly inevitably enshrined without any overarching theme connecting their careers. That the process is so opaque — conducted by appointment and commission rather than some kind of public vote — only makes it harder to find a standard.
Whatever that invisible standard is, Rose met it. He is better than a significant portion of the NBA players who have been enshrined, and if the purpose of any Hall of Fame is to serve as a museum of the history of its sport, the story of the NBA over the last 15 years cannot be told . without the inclusion of Rose. He will make the Hall of Fame even if we will never quite know what that Hall of Famer is trying to accomplish.
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