Natural Born Killer

He shoots, he scores.
(Photo courtesy of Sports5)

The last of a seemingly dying-breed in this day and age of social media marks and "experts," GlobalPort Batang Pier's resident star Terrence Bill Romeo continues to shine for his team this PBA Commissioner's Cup with one sterling performance after another.

It's hard to be a natural born killer, scorer, like Romeo nowadays since if ever a basketball player would score 30 points in a hotly-contested game, marks would look at the other numbers-- how many shots did he take, how many misses, the number of assists he issued and what not (specially if his team is on the losing end). This scenario has caused a lot of superstars, here and abroad, to change their game to try and please the masses. Some specialists are even left off teams simply because they're dismissed as one-trick ponies who are of no good to anyone when unable to score or do a certain task that they're known for.

Romeo continues to open the gates to superstardom when the "experts" leave him off the discussion because "he's too ___" or "he doesn't do ____."

Well, three games into the conference and Romeo is averaging 23 points to go with 3.3 assists which is already atop the league's best when you consider that he's playing in an import-laden conference. With the presence of a reliable big man in import CJ Leslie plus the runaway PBA Rookie of the Year winner (hope we don't jinx it) Stanley Pringle, Romeo has further elevated his game into that of a go-to-guy's (something he has had no problems with his entire amateur career).

We don't expect Romeo to average 5 assists (the 3 assists a night are worth celebrating enough), but we hope that he continues to grow as a player. In the game against Rain or Shine, he was not only engaging RoS star Paul Lee on the scoreboard, but was going mano-a-mano in hand-to-hand, gulangan combat as well wherein maybe two conferences ago he'd blow his top and ruin his concentration.

That night?

He tried to single-handedly revive his team in the last minute with a barrage of threes against the stingiest of defenses.

Do you want him to pass more? To Pringle or his import? Do you want him to rebound the ball a lot more? Play off screens and wait his turn? Concentrate on defense?

Sure, that's all good and would help him develop as a player.

But for now, he's the last of a dying breed of natural born killers. Bad men who are not there to please the crowd, but to win games. To compete until the very end. To stomp on their opponents and bury them in the mud until the final whistle.

The PBA has an abundance of all-around talent nowadays, but not a lot of young, up-and-coming scorers akin to the days of Kenneth Duremdes, Vergel Meneses, Nelson Asaytono in the 90s.

We can only hope that Romeo isn't traded anytime soon and glued to a loaded team's bench.