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| The modern day Meneses-Duremdes? |
So who’s better—the two-time Most Valuable and now de facto (after a series of trades and releases) franchise player James Yap or vastly underrated and once “Super Sub,” “Scoring Apostle” Peter June Simon?
In case you haven’t been paying much attention to the BMeg Llamados of late and have only seen them in their successful PBA Commissioner’s Cup Finals Game 1 campaign, Simon has quickly overtaken Yap in terms of doing more for his team—say, putting up the points because defense can only do so much at day’s end.
That’s not to say that Yap has been coasting this season—he’s playing arguably the most complete basketball game we’ve seen of him to date by moving without the ball, rebounding and looking for the open man. Before, Yap would get his assists by simply stopping up top and looking for cutters. These days, he makes solid to good kick-out passes while being on the move himself which creates for a more difficult cover for opponents.
The Yap vs Simon debate has long been burning on the sidelines, with most fans siding with Yap (hard to argue with the hardware and hard-earned fame) and both players refusing to give it any thought by virtue of them being the humble, soft-spoken gentlemen that they are.
Yap’s strengths is his overall physical attributes. His shooting clip has dipped somewhat because of ill-advised shot selections, and Mico Halili put so much pressure on him for unfairly tagging him as the PBA’s “Man with the million moves.”
Million moves? Right. Yap can’t even post up a smaller defender. (In KKS’ opinion, the PBA’s Million Moves Man is no other than Willie Miller who could pretty much do everything almost effortlessly despite being so blatantly out of shape).
Back to the debate.
Yap has the size, speed, athleticism and grizzly bear sized hands, nay, paws, perfect for a basketball superstar. He makes big baskets from time to time, makes the most amazing lay-ups and poster-worthy bitbit one-handers. What he lacks is focus on defense, the drive to keep forcing the issue and ball handling.
Enter Simon. The Scoring Apostle. He lives for big games, he thrives in these situations and wants the basketball instead of just waiting for his teammates to give it to him. The ball-hog, scorer’s mentality. The Michael Jordan. The Kobe Bryant. The DNA that LeBron James seems to be missing. That’s who Simon is.
Defensively, Simon is the most God-awful superstar at that end. Probably worse than Baguio who at least recognizes his defensive deficiencies and makes up for it by giving away fouls. Simon? Not so much. He gets out of the way most of the time.
But what makes Simon great is his fearlessness with the basketball. Armed not only with a decent stroke from almost anywhere, Simon is also a better player today than Yap by virtue of him being a passable end-to-end dribbler. Yap struggles in games wherein defenses are tight because of his paltry dribbling skills—the main reason why he keeps forcing threes (fortunately for him, he makes them during key situations so fans forgive him for the misses that went before), while Simon is able to get away from defenders with ease or, at the very least, get the benefit of the referees’ calls.
To cut it short:
James Yap
Textbook, beautiful form and follow through on jumpshots
Streaky shooter
Strong
Fast
Athletic
Improving rebounder
Improving passer
Improving defender
Learning to move without the basketball
PJ Simon
Streaky shooter
Fast
Athletic
Solid handles
Big time scorer
True enough, if the game was played only on one end of the floor then PJ Simon owns this match-up and wins the debate via landslide. Keep in mind though that Yap is going through a transition phase in his basketball career (while still averaging double digits), spreading out his wings so to speak by doing more for his team. The move from shooting guard to small forward has also forced Yap to guard and be guarded by bigger, more athletic competition.
They’re teammates, and debates such as this one shouldn’t even be considered since both are good friends and have each other’s back. But where would the fun in that be?
Better yet, your team is down one with only 10 seconds to go. Who do you call a play for, James Yap or PJ Simon? Don't be a wuss and say "either, or" now (though in reality, this is a good problem to have if you're Tim Cone).
Nice article! :)
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