Will there be a Philippine Basketball Association Season 43?
In view of the presence of 21 heads of state in the country, I will refrain from commenting on any sensitive issue pertaining to the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte. I will discuss instead an issue that is generating enormous discussion among Filipinos. Foremost in their mind now is the question of whether the final game of Season 42 of the Philippine Basketball Association, which drew an attendance of 54,086, the biggest crowd ever to attend an event in the history of Philippine sports, is also the very last game of the 42-year-old league.
At the end of Season 41, I wrote that the basketball court has become the new battleground of two business empires: San Miguel Corp. ( SMC) and Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC). SMC owns the basketball teams San Miguel Beermen, Ginebra Gin Kings, and Purefoods Star Hot Shots while MPIC has TNT Katropa, Meralco Bolts, and NLEX Road Warriors.
In the last six seasons or 18 conferences, San Miguel basketball squads have won a total of 13 championships, six by San Miguel Beer, five by Purefoods, and two by Ginebra. Metro Pacific quintets have bagged five trophies, all by Talk ‘N Text. Meralco joined the PBA only in 2010 and NLEX is only on its second year in the league.
The semifinalists or Final Four of the last four conferences — the Philippine Cup, Commissioner’s Cup, and Governors’ Cup of Season 42 and the Governors’ Cup of Season 41 were teams of the two business empires. Only in the Commissioner’s Cup of Season 41 did other teams — Rain or Shine and Alaska — break into the elite group of semifinalists. The two “free standing” teams disputed that conference’s crown, with Rain or Shine emerging as champion as winner.
The reason for the impressive records of those teams is the abundance of superior talent in their rosters. And those powerhouse lineups are made possible because of the huge budgets of the two teams. Fred Uytengsu of Alaska has wondered how both San Miguel and Ginebra manage to stack up former first- round draft picks without going over the league salary cap (the maximum amount a team can pay for all its players). He mentioned four-time MVP June Mar Fajardo, Arwind Santos, Chris Ross, Marcio Lassiter, and Alex Cabagnot for the Beermen and Greg Slaughter, Japeth Aguilar, Joe Devance, LA Tenorio, Scottie Thompson, and Kevin Ferrer for the Kings.
Recently, San Miguel traded seldom used players Ronald Tubid, JayR Reyes, Rashawn McCarthy, and the first-round draft pick in 2019 for Kia Picanto’s No. 1 pick in the 2017 Rookie Draft. San Miguel used that right to pick Fil- German Christian Standhardinger, considered the prize catch among all the young players eligible to play in the professional league.
PBA chief statistician Fidel Mangonon III said that is the fourth time in the last six years that the top draft pick did not go to the team that originally earned the pick. Two of the four overall top picks went to San Miguel — Jun Mar Fajardo from Air 21 and Standhardinger. One went to TNT