Out of focus

Looking for the D
(Photo credit to the owner)

This is not how a "liberated" Grand Slam team should be performing.

Flirting with disastrous start to the season, rookie coach Jason Webb and his STAR Hotshots are currently sitting ugly with a 2 wins versus 6 losses slate in the ongoing PBA Philippine Cup. It honestly seems that while people were so busy looking at how Webb was supposed to run some Golden State-like, high-octane offense, the team forgot its championship defense somewhere in the middle of exorcising the Triangle Offense from their system.

For the numbers-hungry, STAR is averaging 91 ppg 46 rpg 16 apg while giving up 95 ppg 47 rpg and 19 apg to opponents. They are also committing 19 turnovers a match, which by itself tells you that this team has a lot of problems on so many fronts.

Two-time PBA MVP James Yap is putting up impressive numbers (30mpg 18ppg 4rpg 1apg) yet again after being stymied by the Triangle, PJ Simon is doing his thing off the bench (24mpg 12ppg 3rpg 2apg) and Marc Pingris (will he be traded or won't he) is still pretty solid (30mpg 11ppg 7rpg 3apg) despite the Gilas wear and tear so that is something to be happy about if you are a STAR fan.

The ones that you should be concerned about, is the mediocre play of the guys who were supposed to be ready to takeover the franchise alongside Coach Jason. Those guys are Mark Barroca (31mpg 10ppg 6rpg 3apg), Ian Sangalang (25mpg 9ppg 5rpg), Justin Melton and Alex Mallari. Of the four, Barroca looks to  be the most out of control since he commits 4 of the team's 19 turnovers per outing. Mallari has subsided somewhat, no longer able to find the cracks and free spaces given him by the Triangle Offense and being forced to rely more on one on one play (which isn't his strength since he is not built to really take on the PBA's elite 1-on-1 defenders). Melton has been solid, but he is also lost in trying to figure out if he is a point or shooting guard in Coach Jason's offense.

Then there is Sangalang.

From a skills standpoint based on what we have seen, Sangalang is arguably the best and most polished big man in the PBA among his peers. He has the handles, shooting, speed, size and discipline. He has both high (Japeth Aguilar) and low (Junemar Fajardo) post games, can pass in traffic (Greg Slaughter) and even make the occasional three ball (Raymond Almazan). What he lacks in muscle, he makes up for with high basketball IQ. These are just some of the reasons why STAR management did not hesitate in giving the 6"8 slotman a fresh 3-year pact worth P15 million despite coming off a serious ACL - MCL injury.

Well, 9 points and 5 rebounds in 25 minutes a night doesn't quite spell "franchise player" now does it (because if it were, Rain or Shine's Almazan would be a superhero in the eyes of his coach Yeng Guiao)?

Right now we can give Sangalang some leeway since he is coming off injury. But it wouldn't hurt if he started making his presence felt for STAR, which finds itself relying on Pingris' ok-but-not-great post moves just to balance the floor out. Yousef Taha is a bruiser with no offense while Norbert Torres is a 3-point shooting, non-rebounding big-sized big man. Go figure.

Is Allein Maliksi still being taught a lesson? Because if they wanted to commit to the run and gun thing and play small ball, you could slide this kid up to 4 and Sangalang at 5 and kill the opposing team's 2nd unit.

Maybe Coach Jason can quit with the offense, and have his STAR buckle down on defense first yes?