The Beast and The Bull

Is the PBA's newest Bad Boy
bound to be like the Bad Boys of old?
(Photo courtesy of Sports5)

One look at the ongoing PBA Philippine Cup and it's easy to say who's been the most solid performer of them all on both ends of the court. With averages of third league best 17 ppg, league best 15 rpg and league 8th best 3 apg while playing a career-high 29 mpg, Abueva has continued to silence the critics (owing to his more toned down theatrics) and make a strong case for a huge, max contract once his rookie deal is up.

The only concern here now is if Abueva will ever get the nod of the PBA Board and Media and maybe at some point in his career, earn individual accolades that are usually not given to players with a "bad rep." You don't have to look that far, there's Mark Caguioa sometime in his career wherein he should've been the runaway PBA MVP but didn't get the love from the league (the year he did win the award, was probably a "do-over" by the league, but should've gone to either a TNT player or Gary David). There are others as well, most notably one of the more controversial superstars in Nelson "The Bull" Asaytono.


Like Abueva, Asaytono could easily dominate a basketball game though more on the scoring side of things. The 6"4 burly shooting guard was basically "unstoppa-bull" during his heydays, but never really received any love from the league. Asaytono worked in the shadows behind TV-friendly teammates Jojo Lastimosa, Alvin Patrimonio and Jerry Codinera, was later on traded to man his own team before being supplanted by a rising rookie named Vergel Meneses and when he finally had his turn at the spotlight with San Miguel, he was eventually booted out for another franchise cornerstone-in-the-making named Danny Ildefonso. Oh, and he was just recently snubbed as being part of the PBA's 40 Greatest Players.

Do you see the pattern now?

Let us paint a clearer picture for you then.

Like Asaytono, Abueva came into the Alaska franchise with a role designed for him rather than being given freedom to excel. At Alaska, it was clear that the battle lines were drawn early on-- he won't have plays called for him, he's not going to be able to call for isolations and if he wants to stay on the floor, he'll have to earn it by playing blue collar basketball. Basically speaking, despite averaging a near triple double his last year with San Sebastian to merit being a franchise player, they turned him into a glorified bit player.

Well, that didn't last long. Abueva played like Abueva and soon took the Aces (and the league) by storm. Asaytono did that as well early in his career, until it basically forced his mother team to pick between the bad boy and The Captain. Well, we all know how that turned out so you can't really say that it was a bad decision (at the time and even to this day).

Even during his prime, Asaytono never really got the love from the media. Asaytono engaged his old buddy Patrimonio on numerous occasions in that 1996 to 1997 stretch while being "The Man" in the entire PBA. His patented, one-hand, heavy follow-through jumpers are stuff of legend to this day (kudos to 2x PBA MVP James Yap for breaking it out from time to time). He was better than Patrimonio those two years. But he never got love for it.

Same with Abueva-- and the man that is being forcibly linked to his name despite the disparity in overall basketball credentials and skill set, Cliff Hodge.

Hodge plays like Abueva when it comes to hustle, but because he's so raw, is pretty much 1/3 of what an Abueva can do on the floor. But you know, since he's an english speaking bloke with presentable good looks, he's the guy that the media usually gravitate towards more than the brash, cocky Abueva. Hell, Abueva is averaging better numbers at his size than guys that the league and media deem so "dominant" in Greg Slaughter and Junemar Fajardo-- both giants by global standards.

Even when he's being goofy, Willie Miller style, guys are still intimidated/ thrown off by Abueva.

But why should a player be TV friendly when that's not his style? Why should he not be rewarded for the way he carries himself on and off the court when the numbers, the impact he has on the game, doesn't lie?

Hopefully, Abueva continues with his stellar play-- and probably more importantly, that the media, the league as a whole, do not sleep on this superstar and take him for granted like they did Asaytono and other stars (young and old) of the PBA.