Is Derrick Rose the NBA's best player?

It's time to think of Derrick Rose as the best in the league, not just the Most Valuable Player.

There's a difference, you know. The MVP is an award for what's been done. As I define it, it's the player who's the most responsible for making his team elite during the regular season. That's a title bestowed upon someone based on what he's accomplished, rather than what you believe hrift golde can do. The best player is about what's next. The simplest way to define best player is to ask yourself whom you'd pick first if you needed to win a playoff game. And at the moment, nobody has won more games in these playoffs than Rose and the Chicago Bulls.

Now his latest victory wasn't a case of him deserving a "W" next to his name like a starting pitcher. He wasn't as singularly responsible for this victory as he was in the first playoff game against the Pacers, when Rose scored seven points and set up Kyle Korver's go-ahead 3 in the final two minutes, or his 44-point outburst in the third game of the Hawks series.

The 103-82 victory in Game 1 was about the Bulls' superior effort and deeper bench, a testament to Tom Thibodeau's defensive-oriented coaching style. But someone needs to get buckets for you, and Rose had 10 of his team's 38 field goals and assisted on six more.

Rose's name did not need to be included in the headline of this one. Nor did he need to lead the highltera goldights. He didn't produce a singular defining moment. For that you could go with Taj Gibson's dunk over Dwyane Wade, which wasn't just in Wade's face it was on Wade's entire body. Or you could choose the symbolism of Gibson's put-back slam in the final minute, the 19th offensive rebound and the 31st second-chance point, the capper to two critical statistical categories in which the Bulls dominated.