Advantage: Smart Gilas

While I can't stress the fact that fans are being treated to a great championship series between the San Miguel Beermen and Talk N Text Tropang Texters enough, there's even more reason to look forward to the coming Commissioner's Cup: the entry of the Smart Gilas Pilipinas national team.

Forget the experimental "invitational, exhibition" matches they had last season (which ended with Wynne-gate), this time SG is in it to actually win the whole thing while benefitting from having the tallest import-- naturalization candidate Marcous Douthit (who stands 6"10) and some of the country's top young talents.



From the outside looking in, SG has a solid rotation of JV Casio, Andy Barroca, Chris Tiu, Chris Lutz, Marco Lassiter, Aldrech Ramos, Douthit, Greg Slaughter, Mac Baracael and Jason Ballesteros. With Dylan Ababou making a cameo here and there, and high school stars like Kiefer Ravena and Baser Amer (who are pretty young in my book, why weren't established collegiate stars like Calvin Abueva or Jeric Teng given a try-out? Or is SG going with Ateneans to make the recruitment process easier?).

While I've only seen SG play a couple of times, Barroca has the tools to excel in the PBA given his speed. Casio will always have my respect as having the balls to get hit by a then volatile Wynne Arboleda and actually live to tell about it. Tiu? I don't know. My money's on Barangay Ginebra's Ronald Tubid punking the SG posterboy out first time they meet.

Ramos on the other hand, will run into a lot of problems given his Arwind Santos Jr.-like frame as the team's de facto power forward. Look for SG head coach Rajko Toroman to either move the young Ramos to the bench in favor of Ballesteros, or pair Douthit with Slaughter (highly unlikely, though I'd like to see how much GS has improved now that he's under Norman Black's School for Post-up Bigs).

Can't wait for the CC to start on February 18! Hopefully, they kick things off with an SG game. But reports have it that Meralco's going to keep their "opening game" title for another conference.

PS

In other news, Meralco and Air21 (no surprise here) are in talks of a trade that could send Ren Ren Ritualo to the Bolts and reunite with Cardona. Okay, someone get Mike Cortez away from Ginebra! Joseph Yeo from San Miguel! Why can't we have a DLSU-core team for once? (Remember the Red Bull/Ateneo team of Membrere-Alvarez-Fonacier-Villanueva-Bugia? Too bad they had to break that up.)