Trade reaction: Carlo Lastimosa to NLEX

The Yeng Guiao era is slowly dawning upon us.

In what we feel is only the beginning of more roster changes, the newly-installed NLEX head coach has acquired the services of rising star Carlo Lastimosa from the Blackwater Elite in exchange for little-used James Forrester and a 2016 PBA Draft 2nd round pick (which in essence is really a 3rd rounder no thanks to the Gilas "special" draft).

Basically, they lost a 6mpg 1ppg 1rpg guy and gained a 2nd generation talent who is coming off a breakout season by averaging 26mpg 18ppg 3rpg 2apg while shooting 43% from the 2-pt and 32% from 3.

At NLEX, Lastimosa will join Jonas Villanueva, Kevin Alas and Garvo Lanete to form quite a fiery guard rotation which will be unleashed by Coach Yeng. We have always said that NLEX was built to run but was made to walk by former coach Boyet Fernandez in hopes of utilizing their aging 6”10 center Asi Taulava. What he doesn’t realize here is that the more Taulava plays a grit-and-grind pace, the more toll it takes on his knees because he’s banging a lot in the box versus younger guys. Under Guiao, the guards will be the focus with the bigs utilized for setting bone-crushing screens and rebounding (while scoring every now and then; which should be okay with Taulava who was never really the big time scorer during his younger years).

They will be a bit small, but we are holding out for an Alas-Lanete-Lastimosa trio to play alongside Taulava and Sean Anthony in tight matches.

For Blackwater, well, this is starting to become an ugly trend now isn’t it?

We hope that Forrester is able to crack Coach Leo Isaac’s SG rotation which “only” has Almond Vosotros and Bambam Gamalinda as far as we know. Considering their college resumes and hype, Forrester SHOULD get the starting nod here and get his touches.

Our advise to Forrester?

Be greedy.

Show some spunk, some intensity. If you can’t play PBA level defense, then play PBA level offense, if not higher. That’s how Lastimosa broke through to earn his place in the league, and that’s pretty much GlobalPort superstar Terrence Romeo’s calling card since day one.

Who knows, if Forrester manages to average double figures, maybe he’d be next in line to be sent to a Team MVP squad.

That 2nd round pick... it's not like BW couldn't use all the help that they can get (which is sad, because the help that they do need, they keep gift-wrapping away).

NLEX grade: A

Blackwater grade: C