Lincicome: DeRozan for MVP no longer a surprise
If DeMar DeRozan had any chance of being the Most Valuable Player of the NBA, he would not need me to explain why he should be. But I am happy to join the boomlet of support that has grown for him.
Clearly, DeRozan should be the choice. No doubt. Full stop. Enough said. Shut up about it.
But that is not the way these things work. If anyone knew exactly how they work Steve Nash would not have won consecutive MVPs when Kobe Bryant could win only one, or Derrick Rose could win one on a promise broken by fate.
No matter how obvious the winner should be, every MVP contest needs to create a bit of uncertainty, good for the game, good for the chit and the chat that keeps the long NBA season from becoming pre-playoff calisthenics.
With the sidecar of the All-Star carnival behind us, little of interest awaits the casual basketball buff until after college hoops has sorted out its brackets, that clever contraption known as March Madness.
Think of this time as the campaign trail in politics, loud and endless but with the candidate having little control over what is said about him. DeRozan may modestly admit that he thinks of himself as the best player, but as he will find, it is not up to him.
To this end some folks keep lists of who is and who isn't likely to win MVP - this just in, Luca Doncic is picking up support in the Philadelphia suburbs - rather the same as football power rankings or Heisman races, where there is neither rank nor race but mere opinion, much as this column is.
I have no vote, never did, even during all those years when Michael Jordan was so obvious a choice that arguments had to be made as to why he was not the MVP. To this day there is no convincing me that Karl Malone ... ah, Jordan doesn't need my retro endorsement any more than DeRozan does my current one.
There does seem to be increasing testimonials for the Bulls' guard, all stretching and straining to justify DeRozan and inevitably followed by a question mark.
It goes like this. DeRozan MVP? Why not? These endorsements do have a Carrie at the prom prankishness about them and you wonder when the laughter starts what mayhem may follow.
Until then, let's make the case.
The chief support for DeRozan's standing as the best of the best seems to be surprise. He is not supposed to be doing this. By this I mean winning games in the fourth quarter, surpassing a Wilt Chamberlain record no one knew existed until he did it (most 35-point games in a row shooting 50 percent). Still, pairing one's name with Wilt the Stilt cannot hurt.
While DeRozan has had many years in the league to establish his bona fides, and making several All-Star squads, never before this season has anyone argued that he belongs with the Durrants and Currys and LeBrons, though he did once receive a fifth-place MVP vote for reasons not revealed.
In the last 25 years only four MVPs have come from the team that won the title, so whether the Bulls win it all or not, it should not matter. Nine players over the age of 30 have been MVP, so age 32 cannot be dismissive, however late DeRozan is to glory.
The other surprise is, of course, the Bulls, a team of distant legend but current curiosity, not to be taken seriously until DeRozan, along with Zach LaVine, made them serious again. Much credit goes to DeRozan for elevating the Bulls to the top of the East, especially with incomplete lineups around him.
Does any of this make him better than those copyreader nightmares, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic, the straw poll leaders in the MVP deliberations? If you ask me, DeRozan wins on spelling alone, though he could cut down on gratuitous capitalization.
Going for DeRozan is his growing reputation as Mr. Fourth Quarter, the man to hit the buzzer beater, the man to bring the Bulls back at the end, the man with the ball in his hands when it matters most, no matter how awkward he looks shooting that one-legged jumper from somewhere around the free-throw line.
That is no longer a surprise but an expectation.