MV-Ring

Can you hear it Gary?
We can. They're saying M-V-P.

In the NBA, the Most Valuable Player award is given after the regular season regardless if the leading candidate makes it all the way to the Finals or not. That is why we've all had the privilege of recognizing some of the world's greatest basketball players who may or may not rule your television sets or play on the biggest stage of them all.

The same cannot be said however, for the PBA. Since our favorite basketball association plays three conferences in a season, the MVP trophy is given only after 2 3/4 of the season has been played. The last couple of MVP awardees have all enjoyed championship runs, the most recent being Jimmy Alapag of the Talk 'n' Text Tropang Texters.

But this year, it looks like we're in for one of those "history in the making," "feel good" stories.


If rumors are true, the Powerade Tigers' Gary David is on his way to becoming the Best Player of the Conference for the second straight time this year. Already being handed the citation in the Philippine Cup for his out-of-this-world scoring run, David leads the stats race with somewhere around the 34 percent clip while Barangay Ginebra's Mark Caguioa is at 31. James Yap and Jimmy Alapag are somewhere in the stat race, but nowhere near to really overtake David (stats counting has already ended and it might come down to a popularity contest yet again *sigh*).

That being said, if David wins TWO BPC awards this season, shouldn't that make him a lock for league MVP even if it's this early? The only way his scoring dips at this point (which it probably won't now that he'll only have to share the ball with rookie JVee Casio a.k.a. KKS J-Shock) is if the Tigers fail to make a run at the Governor's Cup quarters or he gets injured (worse-case scenario, let's pray that won't ever be the case for this guy).

So, with the way the Tigers decided to turnover a key contributor (Marcio Lassiter) for a diva (Rabeh Al Hussaini) and change, it's almost hard to bet on the Tigers to make another run at the Finals at this point or for the foreseeable future (unless they get lucky in the draft and take one of those NLEX boys). But, it wouldn't be that far off to crown David as this season's MVP IF he goes on to win another BPC.

Still, we're pretty sure that he'd trade any one of his individual accolades for a PBA title.

From unheralded and under-rated guard playing back-up to Jeffrey Cariaso to legit PBA superstar, Gary David has earned everything he's gotten in the basketball world and rightfully so.