San Miguel coach says import Rhodes a good complement for Fajardo

KOREAN Basketball League veteran Charles Rhodes will be suiting up for the San Miguel Beermen this coming conference and head coach Leo Austria is hoping the 6-foot-8 front liner could complement reigning threetime Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo.

Mr. Rhodes is expected to arrive next week to join the practice of the Beermen, who got a marching orders from the management to prepare hard for the coming Commissioner’s Cup and avoid another subpar performance just like they had the previous seasons right after winning a championship.

The former Mississippi State standout played in the NB A Summer League with the Dallas Mavericks in the 2008-2009 season. But he spent the past few years playing in Korea and he emerged as the third best scorer in the league, averaging 23.8 points and 11.2 rebounds per game.

Mr. Austria believes Mr. Rhodes is not the type of import who would demand for the ball.

Last season, the Beermen had troubles with head case import Tyler Wilkerson, who was sacked by the team in the playoffs. He was replaced by former Best Import Arizona Reid.

“There are imports who want to become the center of attraction, but we play as a team. We don’t want to get an import who would say this is my game. Some of the players have been displaced because of the import. We don’t want to reduce the playing time of June Mar or Arwind because we won’t gain from that. Unlike the other teams, they would gain from the import because the import could fill the void of a missing big guy in the middle. They could also stop June Mar,” Mr. Austria told BusinessWorld.

“We felt that we should get an import who could match up with the talent of our rivals’ imports, so our import could cancel out with their imports and we could keep our advantage with June Mar.”

The Beermen are fresh from winning the Philippine Cup for the third straight season, but Board Governor Robert Non announced during the awarding ceremonies that the team should prepare hard for the coming Commissioner’s Cup and not be contented with what they’ve achieved.

Mr. Austria is confident Mr. Rhodes is the right choice.

“He’s a big man, he’s a good replacement for June Mar, but they can play together. He’s not more on scoring. When you’re a scorer, most of the time he plays from the outside. We don’t want to displace our shooters like Marcio Lassiter, Alex Cabagnot and Arwind Santos. With Rhodes, we will have another option at the post,” added Mr. Austria.