All hands on deck

"You reach, I teach"
(Photo credit to the owner)

Once the curtain unfolds and the spotlight is at its brightest to signify the PBA's 41st season, it would be very wise to consider the GlobalPort Batang Pier as the true darkhorse should things go as planned.

Yes, Coach Pido Jarencio still needs to watch more film and yes, Terrence Romeo will probably never pass the ball to someone who doesn't know what to do with it, but no, this team will definitely not stay in the cellar in any of the next three conferences.

Why?

Because this is a team. Despite the media hype, hoopla and hate thrown towards the polarizing Romeo who finds himself with a veteran sage now at his disposal by the name of Joseph Yeo.

Isn't Yeo a mirror image of Romeo and how his career might pan out?

Yeo is a cut-throat scorer, an awesome one-on-one force both fearless and unforgiving. He was the 3rd overall pick when he applied for the PBA Draft, with lofty "franchise player" expectations to live up to. He put on weight- a lot of it, to combat the PBA's bigger shooting guards. He wasn't fond of passing the basketball to anyone not worth his time. He was traded, lost, took on a role as 6th man and went from there.

When he was traded, he lost weight. Lots of it. He enjoyed a career renaissance first with Ginebra, then with Barako Bull. He actually looks a lot younger nowadays as compared when he was with Santa Lucia or Petron. Get rid of the goat tee and have him sport either a Katchupoy hairdo or that Meteor Garden electrocuted longback and chances are DLSU women will come after him and not even care about that other dude from Xavier.

Romeo, put on lots of weight his rookie year. Fortunately for him, he recognized the fact that it slowed him down somewhat which took away his advantage so he went on a diet for his 2nd year which worked quite well. Passing? Well, that may take some time. Yeo passed only to MacMac Cardona in DLSU, and he saw the benefits of passing for one simple reason which Romeo doesn't have or never learned: championships.

Yeo deferred, passed and won. Romeo is still learning to play with others. Well, more like the others are trying to learn to play with him.

It's going to be fun watching this team, how Yeo and Romeo co-exists. We're not at all worried about Stanley Pringle, the runaway bet for 2014 PBA Rookie of the Year, since he loves playing point as well and has shown that he doesn't mind feeding Romeo. Denok Miranda, Doug Kramer, Mark Isip, Billy Mamaril and Anthony Semerad? Those are blue-collar, selfless, high character guys. They may not like Romeo taking all the shots, but it's not like they don't know that he's a better player than they are, scoring-wise, combined.

And so it will be Pringle, year two.

Will he facilitate, or will he start taking shots?

They need him to do both.

Will Yeo defer to Romeo, like he did Cardona? Yes. Yeo's an under-rated team player. But we wouldn't be surprised if he gets on Romeo for taking one too many shots.

Honestly, Miranda, Yeo (Santa Lucia backcourt memories), Semerad, Isip and Kramer works for us.

Plug in a Romeo or Pringle, and that five goes from good to great right away.

If everything goes accordingly, Pringle, Romeo and Yeo could work just like it did in the PBA Governor's Cup (with Yeo playing the Omar Krayem role). They have the bigs solid enough to combat the rest of the league (Mamaril, Kramer, Marvin Hayes, Prince Caperal, Jewel Ponferada).

Now, let's cross our fingers and hope that they can keep the roster together for a whole season.