C-Stan, Perez vie for Best Player plum

BARANGAY Ginebra’s big man Christian Standhardinger and San Miguel Beer’s athletic wingman CJ Perez are leading the statistical race for the PBA Season 48 Commissioner’s Cup Best Player award at the close of the semifinals on Wednesday.

The 6-foot-8 Standhardinger amassed 35.7 statistical points (SPs) average at the end of the semifinal series on the strength of his solid per-game averages of 16.5 points, 9.9 rebounds and 5.5 assists in 15 games this conference.

But hanging tantalizingly close to the Filipino German is Perez, who has 35.5 SPs, thanks to his per game average of 16.4 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.9 assists this conference.

In fact, with the Beermen scoring a three-game sweep of the Gin Kings in their best-of-five semifinal series, Perez, the two-time Mythical First team member, is favored to win the Best Player of the Conference (BPC) for the first time in his professional career.

At third in the BPC stats race is NorthPort’s vastly improved wingman Arvin Tolentino with 35.1 SPs, followed by TNT’s Calvin Oftana (34.1) and Ginebra superstar Scottie Thompson (31.0).

Tolentino, the 6-foot-5 forward, also leads all locals in scoring this season with 22.4 points per contest, to go along with 5.7 rebounds and 2.4 assists. He helped the Batang Pier reach the quarterfinals but were eventually ousted by the Gin Kings, his former team.

Meanwhile, San Miguel Beer’s sharpshooting import Bennie Boatwright holds a huge lead in the race for the Best Import with 60.3 SPs.

The 27-year-old American out of University of South Carolina came in to take the spot of Ivan Aska and went on to average 35.6 points, 12 rebounds and 3.4 assists for the Beermen, who are in the PBA Finals for the 44th time in franchise history.

San Miguel has gone 7-0 since Boatwright came in and will be gunning for its league-best 29th PBA crown against Magnolia in the Commissioner’s Cup Finals.

Phoenix’s Johnathan Williams is a distant second in the stats race with 50.7 SPs followed by Magnolia’s Tyler Bey (50.6) and Ginebra’s Tony Bishop (44.3).