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GQ’s MVP of the Year: Derrick Rose

We got one of our favorite sportswriters, Will Leitch, to make the case for the Chicago Bulls’ explosive point guard and hoop-god-for-the-coming-decade.

Derrick Rose was always going to win an NBA MVP award. But that it happened this year, at the age of just 22, is ridiculous. Dirk Nowitzki led his team to the title, but Derrick Rose was the bust-out star of 2011. Nobody pretends to be Dirk on the playground. Everybody pretends to be Derrick. Dirk has the jumper. Derrick has the drive, the stop-and-pop, the finger roll, and our favorite, the twisting-curving-winding sprint to the lane that manages to freeze defenders, not break his spine, and drop home the lay-in. The craziest part? He still feels like he has training wheels on. “Ain’t done nothin’ yet,” he says. “The best is coming.”

[Photograph by Nathaniel Goldberg]