The "Dynamite" is back

Much can and probably has been said about the San Miguel Beermen's recent success in the PBA Philippine Cup (despite losing in tonight's game against Alaska, 92-89, after a courageous 31-point deficit comeback). One can attribute it to the team's loaded line-up, Jay Washington's continued stellar play, Alex Cabagnot's steady quarter-backing, head coach Ato Agustin and even Olsen Racela's inspirational play despite his old age.

But another factor that hasn't reached the headlines just yet is the steady play of veteran Danny Seigle. With an injury-riddled career averages of 17 ppg and 6 rpg, I've always looked at Seigle as being a solid player (but never one who should be labeled as a superstar, the same way James Yap is right now- solid, but not great). These days, Seigle is averaging around 11 ppg and 4 rpg in only 20 minutes of burn-- which is as good as it gets for a vet who's coming off the bench behind arguably two of the league's top three small forwards (Washington and Arwind Santos).

In today's game against Alaska, Seigle did what he has always done in the past-- bully smaller opponents to get easy buckets for himself. Once Tony Dela Cruz sat, Seigle did a lot of damage and got his 19 points against guys like Mark Borboran (too thin) and Joe DeVance (who probably doesn't know Seigle's game, giving him so much space out in the perimeter- enough time for DS to set-up his low-arc jumpers, and, well, JDV doesn't play defense at all to begin with).

There was even a Seigle dunk sighting mid-game!

Nostalgia aside, it's always nice to see a veteran (specially one that is injury-prone) being able to do his thing against some of today's "questionable" stars.

P.S.

Yes, it was that hard to find a "Seigle in action" picture that I had to Google for a much older picture (see Talk N Text's old blue uniform and Meralco's Pong Escobal and Yousif Aljamal on the TNT bench).