2013 PBA Draft "Discards" Expansion Team

What might have been for Revilla.
(Photo courtesy of TheLasallian.com)

There are ten teams plying their trade in the Philippine Basketball Association.

Just last year, the league held it's annual PBA Draft wherein bright, young talent were acquired. Some of them were signed to lucrative contracts and have quickly grown to become household names, and then there were those who were not as fortunate.

Come the PBA's 40th Season, the league has agreed to increase their fold by accepting three more teams in NLEX, Blackwater/ Ever Bilena and Kia Motors. This in itself will create more roster spots, nay, jobs for displaced 2013 PBA Draft hopefuls as well as other young (and maybe some old) PBA talent.

Here we try to create a legit 2013 PBA Draft Free Agent basketball team that would only show how deep the pool was or promising some of the unsigned names were. A competitive line-up of young studs who were just unfortunate to have not had the chance to showcase their talents due to already loaded PBA teams.


Right off the bat, here's a 10-man roster of (as far as we know) the 2013 PBA Draft "discards" who we feel, at the very least, could compete in the PBA right now if you were to add maybe two-three grizzled veterans and a steady, solid coach:

PG L.A. Revilla
- answer us this: in a perfect world wherein Revilla wasn't riddled with one health concern after another in his college career, where would he be in the 2013 PBA Draft? If you were to ask us, we'd say he's a lock to be the next/ new L.A. Tenorio. He was/is THAT good. Unfortunately, not even a PBA team that hires mostly his school's alumni wanted to commit to him long term.

SG Jett Vidal
- shooters, shoot, and Vidal proved to be one of the very best gunners in his run in the NCAA. The only concern of course with Vidal is that you can get away with being a one-trick pony in the amateurs (a real damn good pony at that by way of him being an assassin from deep) but what are you going to do when you're faced with Grade A scorers who can light you up just as easily while also locking you down?

SF Nate Matute
- another explosive combo guard who can score at will, Matute probably had a hard time cracking any PBA rotation in the same manner as Vidal. There are a lot of established 5"11-6"1 scorers in the PBA at the moment, so unless you bring something new to the table (Allein Maliksi, a scorer and great ball handler at 6"3 or a Calvin Abueva energy type) then you'd find it hard to get into the pros. Fortunately, there are about 40+ rosters spots opening soon.

PF Mike Parala
- a hard working forward who improved in the two seasons he suited up for Mapua in the NCAA, Parala is athletic enough to make the transition to a reserve small forward in the PBA or stick to his natural power forward spot. He's battled the likes of Abueva and Ian Sanggalang to a standoff before, more than holding his own and averaging somewhere around 13 points and 9 rebounds a game so you know he's solid when given the minutes.

C Mark Bringas
- there's a shortage of wide-bodied mafakas in the PBA. The high IQ, vastly-skilled enforcers who know the difference between giving up a foul and sending a message. Bringas is a more swagged up version of maybe Junjun Cabatu and a more skilled version of his older brother Arvie. If he could just commit to rebounding the basketball a bit more, there's no doubt that he wouldn't have to wait for the three expansion teams to come calling.

Reserves:

PG Jens Knuttel
SG Darwin Cordero
SF Mark Lopez
PF Jayford Rodriguez
C John Usita

Of the reserves, Cordero's in because of his "ligang labas" experience while Lopez is this roster's key perimeter stopper. Knuttel makes the cut because he's quite solid in a "Chris Tiu give me minutes" kind of way. Rodriguez has always been solid from what we've gathered of him from our friends in the South, while Usita is Usita. He remains a mystery, but with a body meant for a WWE audition, we'd love to have him on our roster.

Who do you think should make the starting five of the next PBA expansion team among the 2013 PBA Draft discards? Which player did the league, this season, miss out on?