Checks and balances

Time to break the duo up?

For a star-studded team that's obviously built around "professionalism" and a business-like approach, the Petron Blaze Boosters sure does an awful way of auditing themselves.

There's one of the three captains, Arwind Santos, speaking his mind after their 88-86 loss to the Alaska Aces, calling out his point guard Alex Cabagnot. The mere and simple fact that they have THREE captains should be cause of concern. And how they all managed to overtake veteran Danny Ildefonso from the picture is also an obvious display of how they want to move forward.

They're far from being sentimental, they know who the stars on the team are, those are the captains. Captains who are expected to take the lead. To bring the fight night in and night out and not let anything shake them in the endgame.

Every man for himself

Where'd this guy go?

The Petron Blaze Boosters finally looked like a team on the floor last night, dominating the hapless Barako Bull Energy Cola 98-89 and just running and executing under neophyte "coach" Olsen Racela.

Leading the way were Chris Lutz, Alex Cabagnot and Arwind Santos who all appeared to strive under the transition game. Lutz, who topscored for the Boosters with 22, was his usual "silent assassin" self-- getting to his spots on the floor and just letting the game come to him. Why Mico Halili et. al. hasn't tagged him as the PBA's "The Natural" ala the NBA's Brandon Roy, we'll leave to them.

Santos also bounced back from an abysmal first game against Rain or Shine while Cabagnot provided the heroics and closing efforts when the Boosters opted to take its collective "foot off the gas" so to speak and allowed the Colas to come back in the 4th quarter.

Rain or Shine survives The Kraken

Basta si Jeff Chan ang sumipat, ilista mo na

With all due respect to the so-called powerhouse teams (on paper) in the PBA, the Rain or Shine Elastopainters look like they're the most complete team in the league today. First to go down are the heavily-favored Petron Blaze Boosters who not only have a bunch of guys who could easily fill out a Team Pilipinas/All Star roster, but also the league's number one overall draft pick and a guy expected to dominate for years, 6"9 June Mar "The Kraken" Fajardo.

The game started out real close, but come the second half the Elastopainters buckled down to work and started flexing their muscles-- literally. There were hard screens and fouls that appeared to have knocked the wind out of the Boosters-- unable to keep in step with the Elastopainters who were either driving to the rim or just passing the ball all over the court to find the open man.

Racela's Team... Or Not

Coach O and "assistant" Coach T

It's only fitting that a team packed with superstars but have yet to discover their true identity on the hardcourt would have two "voices" hollering from the sidelines. There's the "official head coach" of the Petron Blaze Boosters in Olsen Racela and his trusty "assistant/ team consultant," Serbian coach and International basketball guru, Rajko Toroman.

Based on basketball pedigree alone, it's pretty obvious which one should (and would) take the lead as far as handling the team is concerned. It's pretty doubtful to believe that Toroman will just play assistant while Racela, though a winning amateur coach in international meets, takes charge and draws up last-second plays. The San Miguel organization has proven before that they don't really care much about their coaches' feelings or mentality (asking Jong Uichico to "co-coach" with Siot Tangquincen at Barangay Ginebra San Miguel was disrespectful in everyone's view save for San Miguel brass), so it's probably more like keeping a budding and promising mind like Racela in the family (before Team MVP swoops in and asks him to coach Ateneo or a professional affiliate) while milking Toroman's genius within the context of keeping the Basketball Coaches' Association of the Philippines happy.

Pacific Storm: Cabagnot takes #1 spot

Captain Crunch!

Let's all be honest here.

When Alex Cabagnot, spiked hair, toothy smile and big, brown eyes and all, first came into the league in 2005 via the (my beloved) Santa Lucia Realtors, expectations were rather mixed. All we knew of him was that he came from the same high school (Eagle Rock) that Ginebra's Mark Caguioa did, and also challenged/ broke the former's scoring record (although in a longer period of time).

But as soon as he wore SLR's green and white, we were treated to indecisive and inconsistent point guard play-- with only a couple of gems here and there to make us believe he'd be at par with the long list of great Filipino point guards.