‘BEST EVER’ BET PATRIMONIO NOMINATES JMF TO GOAT DEBATE
Alvin Patrimonio, his status as a top-tier basketball legend long secure, thinks it’s time to make room for another name in the debate about the Philippine Basketball Association’s (PBA) Greatest of All Time (GOAT): San Miguel Beer center June Mar Fajardo.
“With so many achievements under his name, he can already be in the GOAT conversation,” said Patrimonio in a virtual press conference on Friday. “He’s won so many championships with San Miguel and of course he’ll be up there because of his contributions.” Three names normally crop up in the argument for the PBA’s best ever. Patrimonio, who won four most valuable player (MVP) trophies and six titles with Purefoods; Ramon Fernandez, another four-time MVP who leads almost all major career statistical counts and has 19 championships to his name; and Robert Jaworski, the 13-time champion who is the most charismatic player the league has ever known. Fajardo, however, is fast closing in those legends. The 6-foot-10 Cebu star has won eight championships so far and owns the league record of six MVP trophies, which he won in consecutive fashion. Fajardo sat out the shortened 2020 season, which was reduced to a single conference by the coronavirus pandemic, because of a leg injury. But with the league not awarding an MVP crown for that season, Fajardo will be hunting for a seventh straight award when the league reopens this year.
The 6-foot-3 Patrimonio said he isn’t pressured to polish his legacy to remain in the GOAT argument.
“I’m blessed because it was my era when we played against our favorite players, the pioneers of the game,” Patrimonio said in Filipino. “All I did was give my hundred percent effort.”