Hoping for a more balanced PBA
Through the years, professional leagues have enforced ways on how to maintain balanced competition and make the games more exciting.
In the old days, the PBA implemented a scheme that would ensure no team would dominate over the rest of the cast.
There was a time when the PBA’s premier big men like Ramon Fernandez, Abet Guidaben, Abe King, Manny Victorino and Yoyoy Villamin were prohibited from playing alongside each other to make sure there would be balanced competition.
You don’t see Fernandez and Guidaben, two of the best centers in the league, playing in one team. In fact, both players would trade places not once but twice in their respective career. From Manila Beer in 1985, El Presidente was shipped to the Tanduay Rhum Makers for Guidaben.
When controversy rocked Purefoods in the 1988 All-Filipino finals series against Añejo Rum 65, then the brand being carried by the old Ginebra franchise, Fernandez found himself traded in the seasonending third conference for who else, but Guidaben.
With the influx of new talents, including big men who can make immediate impact like Alvin Patrimonio, Jerry Codiñera and Benjie Paras, the PBA was bound to make changes, but made sure teams would remain competitive, even when the league expanded when RFM company and Pepsi Cola entered Asia’s pioneering pro league.
It would take RFM, then carrying the name Diet Sarsi and later on Swift Mighty Meaty Hotdogs, just two seasons from becoming a developmental team to a legitimate title contender. The Joey Concepcion-owned franchise entered the finals in just its second season before losing to Purefoods in four games of the best-of-five championship series of the 1991 All-Filipino Conference. The next year, Swift came back with a big bang, winning its first ever title behind a demigod import named Tony Harris, beating 7-Up, its fellow newcomer member, in the season-ending Third Conference.
It didn’t take long for these expansion franchises to make their mark in the pro league. That’s because they were able to get great pieces. They would make sure they will get quality players either via trades or the Rookie Draft.
In the NBA, the league uses the salary cap as a way to oversee balance among the teams competing. Over spending would result to hefty fines by means of paying the luxury tax. Teams are evaluating the trade transactions based not only in terms of talent but also on how much they earn. This will give the league an easier time to see how balanced the trade works.
From 2002-2003 season until the 2015-2016 season, the NBA has been able to collect millions of dollars from teams which exceeded the salary cap, the most the league has received came from the New York Knicks, who paid a total of $248.54 million over a period of 10 seasons.
Alaska Milk top honcho Wilfred Uytengsu has been very much vocal about alleged salary cap violations and lopsided trade issues and he believes such things needed to be addressed to restore the integrity of the league.
PBA Commissioner Chito Narvasa, himself, made sure reforms will be made when it comes to trading of players and he will bring that up to the board.
All these things surfaced when Kia Picanto decided to trade its top overall pick to San Miguel in exchange for four players — veteran center Jay-R Reyes, sophomore guard Rashawn McCarthy, San Miguel’s first round pick in 2019 and seasoned swingman Ronald Tubid.
While Commissioner Narvasa tried his best to make the trade looks fair, an average basketball fan believes Kia Picanto could get more than that.
Long-time basketball fans are sick and tired of these ridiculous trades. If a team is serious on trying to get better, it needs to upgrade its lineup and show its seriousness of competing. Kia Picanto has traded its first round picks two times the past three seasons — and hopefully, this would be the last of those questionable, ill-advised movements the team will be making.