RoS not rushing Lee
PAUL Lee, Rain or Shine’s superstar point guard, will finally make his first appearance this season when the Elasto Painters and defending champion San Miguel Beer start their best-of-seven Final Four series in the PBA Philippine Cup at Mall of Asia Arena this Tuesday.
But before anyone gets carried away and thinks that Lee will carry the Painters right in his first game back from a knee injury, Yeng Guiao will be there to rein him back a bit.
The firebrand coach thinks his franchise player will be “90 percent ready” by the 7 p.m. tip-off.
“He had his first scrimmage with contact [yesterday], though in a half-court setting,” Guiao told the INQUIRER over the phone. “He will be playing with contact again [today] and Monday so he can get his timing back.
“On Tuesday, I think he’ll be 90 percent, but I will play him maybe 10 to 12 minutes, tops,” Guiao went on. “He is in shape, because his therapy includes conditioning. It’s just his timing on physical plays that’s missing because he hasn’t had [game] contact for a long time.”
Lee sat out the first 13 Rain or Shine games because of knee problems, and his return gives Guiao another weapon against the big and talented San Miguel crew that is looking to win a championship for the second straight conference.
Guiao said he wasn’t surprised that Lee is in such fine shape, and could in fact assume control of the squad that made do without him and finished third in the elimination round.
“Basketball comes naturally for him, that’s why,” Guiao said when asked why he thinks returning to peak form seems easy for the 6-foot former Rookie of the Year. “He will be useful [in Game 1], but I will control his minutes, maybe 10-12.”
“He will surely play longer in [Game 2] on Thursday,” Guiao added.
Lee is also itching to play just to be able to get back in a title series and help the Painters win the only conference that has eluded Guiao in his glittering career.
Guiao hasn’t won an All-Filipino championship after several misses, while Lee wasn’t on the active roster when Rain or Shine, also under Guiao, won its first and by far only PBA title with Jamelle Cornley in the 2012 Governors’ Cup.
Returning to the lineup late certainly gives Lee the freshness to go for extended minutes the rest of the playoffs.
Rain or Shine was responsible for one of the Beermen’s only two losses in the elimination round as the Painters gang-defended San Miguel cornerstone June Mar Fajardo all night.
Though the Beermen lost that elimination round game, most pundits list San Miguel as the slight favorite.
DiGregorio deal extended
Meanwhile, Mahindra extended the contract of rookie point guard Michael DiGregorio until the end of the 2017 season after the former McKendree University star in the United States exploded for a combined 39 points in the last two games of the Enforcers.
Scouted by player agent Matthew Manotoc in Chicago in 2011 and picked in the fourth round, DiGregorio, whose mother is from Pangasinan, was inserted into the active roster of the Enforcers in their final five games.
Originally picked to be just a practice player, DiGregorio, whose uncle Ernie was the 197374 NBA Rookie of the Year while playing for the Buffalo Braves, inked an extension that would pay him up to six figures a month in the last year of the pact.