It has been a stunning turn of events. About 10 minutes ago, Rondo vs. Derrick Rose was considered a fairly even matchup. Now it’s as one-sided as Charlie Sheen against a New York heckler. On Thursday in Chicago, as the Bulls rolled over the Celtics, Rose toyed with Rondo. The Celtics point guard looked hesitant, unsure of himself and afraid to take the ball to the hoop — the exact opposite of the way he played for the most of the past four seasons.

For whatever reason, Rondo has lost it. And as Rondo goes, so goes the Celts offense. On Sunday in Miami, Rondo had one hoop, one free throw and one assist halfway through the third quarter. By then, the Celtics were out of the game and out of the race for the No. 2 seed. The Bulls and Heat did to the Celtics what the Celtics used to do to all comers: They ripped the C’s heart out and stomped it flat.

Can we all agree, at the very least, that this season's incredibly polarizing (and occasionally hostile) MVP chase is the way we really like it?

Passionate debate, even if it occasionally strays into angry debate, is so much better than what we got last season, when LeBron James had the thing clinched by All-Star Weekend. The absence of a consensus MVP selection has actually made us all smarter, because it leads to so many league observers with different perspectives and backgrounds chiming in. Which can't be a bad thing. Overly heated at times, yes. But so much more interesting and intelligent than the alternative.

That said …

I have consumed every pro-Dwight Howard argument I could find, soaked in every word of my dear colleague John Hollinger's recent must-read missive on Howard's MVP-worthiness, but still can't co-sign. The MVP to me, after nearly two decades as a voter, is the player of the season. However true it is that there is only one Dwight Howard in this age nearly bereft of dominant big men, Howard did not have a better season than Derrick Rose on this scorecard, once you plug in all the subjective factors along with the statistically tangible ones.

The word valuable in MVP is what throws everyone, because value cannot be universally defined, but it's instructive to note that the MVP ballot comes in the same email dispatch from the league office that includes ballots for Coach of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, etc. The voter's task, in my view, is not measuring how irreplaceable someone is, or how his team would theoretically fare if you fantasy-swapped him with someone else, or trying to determine who would be chosen first in the starriest of NBA pickup games. I've always believed that the voter is tasked with identifying who had the best overall season, as computed by gauging a variety of factors.

The stats are obviously paramount. You can't just dismiss the offensive improvements in Howard's game or the titanic impact he has defensively on a team full of non-defenders. But the raps against Rose's statistical efficiency strike me as easily explained, since he's the only Bull who can create his own shot and faced a ridiculous amount of defensive attention all season because his two main sidekicks, Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah, combined to miss 60 games.

I can pardon Rose's slightly iffy efficiency because of everything else he supplied and improved. The on-court load he shoulders, along with the galvanizing effect he's had as a leader for an injury-riddled team that's exceeded all expectations, is the clinching combination here.

Steve Nash, maybe the most controversial MVP of all time when he won the award in 2005, has a great description for the phenomenon at work with Rose. "When I won it [for the first time]," Nash says, "I believe it's because people saw me as the best teammate."

Bingo.

In other words? Nash was the most influential single teammate of the season in question -- instantly changing the culture of a 29-win team with his free-agent return to Phoenix -- just as Rose was this season. Except that Rose didn't change a culture in Chicago. He established one.

It is largely Rose's unflinching support and immediate buy-in to the preachings of ultra-demanding rookie coach Tom Thibodeau that enabled Thibodeau to coach the Bulls with the veteran authority of a Phil Jackson or Gregg Popovich. And this is no small thing. There's no way to measure it statistically, but it's easy to forget all the uncertainty attached to Thibodeau when Chicago hired him. Passed over for several jobs before finally landing this one, Thibodeau was seen in some circles as a career assistant, somehow unfit for the big chair. We all should have known that's not true, after seeing what Thibs did with Boston's defense for the past few seasons, but that skepticism could have easily sprouted in the Bulls' locker room if Rose hadn't instantly committed.

Nearly 60 wins later, Rose is still the Bulls' most powerful messenger. He called out his team this week, loudly warning them -- in the midst of a 20-4 run since the All-Star break -- that they've achieved virtually nothing and had even begun to backslide. Thibodeau could hardly contain his glee when he saw the result Thursday night: Chicago's 97-81 trouncing of the Boston Celtics to all but clinch the East's No. 1 seed.

Imagine what Erik Spoelstra would give for that kind of buy-in from just one of his superstars. Mike D'Antoni certainly doesn't have it with the Knicks, since Carmelo Anthony's arrival, anywhere close to the way he had it was Nash in Phoenix. The legendary Jerry Sloan lost it this season in Utah for maybe the first time in two decades, which conspired with Sloan's waning energy at the age of 69 to send him into sudden midseason retirement. Even the Celtics' famed unity has been rocked, although the vets' quarrel is obviously more with Danny Ainge's decision to trade away Kendrick Perkins than anything that's changed with Doc Rivers.

The point? The sort of relentless leadership and drive to win that stems from Rose really stands out this season. When you add up that subjective stuff with the Bulls' team success relative to preseason expectations, Rose's success in crunch time, how good he's had to be scoring the ball just to get a largely punchless team up to 12th in the league in offensive efficiency and the way he's blossomed as an outside shooter and free throw magnet … you get the 2010-11 MVP.

Especially since Howard, his chief threat in this race, so often leaves you wondering about his abilities as a tone-setter, whether we're talking about how serious he is … or his trouble with technical fouls … or the fact that his free throw frailties still leave the Magic unsure which way to go at the ends of games. Whereas the uber-aggressive Rose, by contrast, is breeding teamwide confidence with a demeanor that screams "Follow my lead."

Would Chicago's role players defend with the ferocity we've seen if Rose hadn't embraced the first-year coach so openly and ramped up his own commitment to D? Would Thibodeau be able to play so many defensive specialists if Rose couldn't shoulder such a heavy offensive load? How meaningful -- how "valuable" -- is Orlando's status as a top-three team defensively if the Magic can't even be considered clear-cut favorites in their forthcoming first-round matchup with an underachieving Atlanta team? All valid questions.

Howard should not be unfairly punished for the deficiencies of the retooled supporting cast around him -- which clearly isn't as good as Rose's when the Bulls are at full strength -- since he's not the one who makes the trades. But the legit concern in Orlando about how effective Dwight will be in the first round against the single coverage of the Hawks' Jason Collins suggests that the stats in Howard's favor, most notably his robust PER of 26.19, aren't nearly as conclusive as they look.

In a season so rife with MVP candidates that overwhelming preseason favorite Kevin Durant can't even make my five-spot ballot, Rose simply checks the most boxes for me, just as Nash did with his transformative make-everybody-better presence in 2004-05. The best individual season of Howard's career, on this ballot, is only No. 2 to Rose's.

I fully expect more passionate pushback from those who prefer the cleaner résumés, numbers-wise, belonging to Dwight and LeBron, but that's no prob. I'd argue that there's at least one more MVP layer that will generate unanimous agreement amid all the screaming: We're all going to greatly miss these raging arguments in November, December and January if all the increasingly pessimistic lockout projections in circulation prove to be accurate.