Playing catch-up

Author's note: It's been months since I posted on KKS2, I actually have a bunch of rough drafts in the oven but due to lack of time/ interest/ research, opted not to have you guys read it (and lose whatever modicum of admiration you have for this mediocre writer).

Who runs the GovCup?
(Photo credit: ABS CBN Sports)

KKS is a blog that I kept primarily to keep myself sane while overseas. While I was with my family, I needed something from home to keep my mind sharp and more importantly, my wits about. When we came back home after three years in the Middle East, the new job has kind of kept me away from the keyboard and television. I still tweet about the games, but as I've always said, writing is an art form that needs to be respected and honored with enough research. I don't just write random hot takes here, like I do when I tweet, I actually take time and watch film, break down plays, check out stats and so on. So we have something nice to talk about (hit me up on Twitter @kilikilishot). I'd like to think that as a writer, I've matured a bit, as with in real life. But basketball will always be a love of mine, it is a great source of entertainment/ joy/ pain/ anger. And I hope that you guys are able to drop by this blog every now and then to check on my latest works, short or long format, good or bad.

Many thanks for the continued trust and support!




So where were we?

Ginebra is in the semifinals after knocking out the grandslam-seeking San Miguel Beermen (who, from the outside looking in, looks like they need to consider a few player changes following that ugly fight during one of their practices). Justin Brownlee continues to stand tall as the barometer for imports, and it seems that he's a lock for yet another Best Import award should Ginebra continue to go deeper into the Governor's Cup.

TNT also managed to escape and unseat the defending Governor's Cup champions, Magnolia, with clutch free throws by new recruit Ray Ray Parks. It was a great match to say the least, and the game could've gone either way. It's just unfortunate that Magnolia appeared to have run out of gas in the end.

Just like the last two (or is it three) seasons, Meralco's doing quite well whenever Allen Durham is around. It's almost like the Ginebra puzzle, except that Durham plays in the paint while Brownlee plays outside. Basically, both teams seem to look average without those two super imports. The Bolts looked very impressive in dismantling the gritty Alaska Aces, and newcomers Raymond Almazan (rim protector) and Allein Maliksi (token scorer) brought the goods.

The TNT-Meralco sister team affair should be fun going into the next round.

Which leaves us with NLEX and Northport. Elbows, flops, ninja hood punches galore. I have no idea what happened or why NLEX approached the game with the intent to play physical to try and rattle Christian Standhardinger and co. Well, it didn't work. CSH flopped his way around the physicality, got the calls, and, well, NLEX' import failed to show up, which basically sealed their fate.

Who do you think will advance to the next round to face Ginebra? Will it be NLEX, the 1st seed, or Northport, which got a new lease on life despite the exit of super rookie Robert Bolick?

Trade RXN: Standhardinger to SMB

Soon to be unleashed.

Ah, the controversial deal that helped open a can of worms which could possibly a) end the Chito Narvasa reign , b) force PBA teams to bolt and or c) earn us a FIBA suspension.

The cellar-dwelling Kia Picanto opted to send the rights to their 2017 1st round draft pick to powerhouse San Miguel in exchange for Rashawn Mccarthy, JayR Reyes, Ronald Tubid and a 2019 1st round draft pick. The Beermen then wasted little time in making it known and eventually using that pick on 6"8 Filipino-German Christian Standhardinger who held his own and averaged near double-doubles in FIBA play.

Let's break this trade down, shall we?

2017 PBA Mock Draft 2.0

Number 2? Or Number 1?
(Photo credit: Inquirer.net)

12. TNT - Louie Vigil, SF, 6"3
A bit under-rated, Vigil is a legitimate PBA 3 who can play both ends of the court. In college, he has shown that he can fill in the gaps when asked to defer to his superstar seniors AND also step up to plate as team alpha. TNT just hasn't been the same since they dealt Larry Fonacier and blindly expected Matt Ganuelas Rosser to fill in that void (they traded him for point man RR Garcia which was brilliant). This move also saves Troy Rosario from looking stupid trying to learn the small forward spot on the fly when he's a natural stretch 4.

11. Barangay Ginebra San Miguel - Julien Sergent, SF, 6"3
Sergent has all the tools that coach Tim Cone just loves to work with; Ginebra doesn't need him to contribute right away, so he can be used as a practice player to help him develop into either a stopper (which he showed flashes of for DLSU) or a finisher around the rim. That small forward practice battle with Aljon Mariano, Kevin Ferrer AND Art dela Cruz should be crazy fun.

10. TNT - Jett Manuel, 6"0
Ryan Reyes is old. UP is Team MVP's latest project. Everything just fits. TNT needs to reload shooter-wise and adding a scorer like Manuel gives them just that.

Trade RXN: RR for MGR

Garcia to TNT, Rosser to SMB
(Photo credit: Gilas)

We never thought we'd see the day wherein San Miguel and TNT would see eye to eye and broker an even trade.

Hey #WeArePBA, also, what a time to be alive.

RR Garcia (18mpg 7ppg 1rpg 2apg) was supposed to be the next "great SMB point guard." It is a role that currently belongs to Chris Ross, after aging star Alex Cabagnot has made the full transition to shooting guard and backup Brian Heruela was found lacking. He showed flashes in the Philippine Cup, his first conference with SMB after being acquired from the Star Hotshots, but has obviously lost favor with the team.

Matt Ganuelas-Rosser (19-6-3-3), like Garcia, was also supposed to be the "next big thing" for TNT. Here is a 6"5 athlete who could run like a gazelle, dunk over the opposition, and basically do anything and everything that is required to win games. Only, he doesn't. Or he does, but only up to a certain point which, in his 3rd/4th season in, tells coaches and fans alike that perhaps he has hit a glass ceiling.

This trade could be a blessing for both.

Perpetual

Greatness within reach
(Photo credit: mb.com.ph)

Ladies and gentlemen, here are your PBA Philippine Cup champions and Perpetual Trophy winners, the San Miguel Beermen!

Alex Cabagnot missed having his beautiful nose fixed for this. Marcio Lassiter deferred to everyone else when everyone knew that he is the team’s best shooter. Arwind Santos stopped trying to look like a superstar and just did a lot of the dirty work. Chris Ross just kept providing the Beermen with the “larong mahirap” hustle and energy. Three-time PBA MVP Junemar Fajardo was happy to just put up “pedestrian” numbers instead of Kraken-like ones for the good of the team.

Coach Leo Austria came under fire, for some reason, because he wasn’t using his bench enough—even when they were winning and almost came out of the elimination round unscathed.
Speaking of the bench, they were all just happy to be there and do whatever was asked. No one was going on social media, no young up and comer was posting “play me or trade me” photos on Instagram. They all simply bought into what Coach Leo was preaching.

And it was all worth it.

Never say die

Ano na, Coach?
(Photo credit: Inquirer.net)

Kung may pagkakataon man na patunayan ng Barangay Ginebra San Miguel sa mga tiga hanga nila at maging sa sarili nila ang katagang "Never say die," eto na yun.

Isang talo na lang, tapos na ang lahat. Bubuhos ang beer. Perpetual Trophy para sa San Miguel Beermen, isa na namang malaking kwento ng tagumpay sa sinusulat pa lamang na biag ni 3x PBA MVP Junemar Fajardo.

Kailangan ng Ginebra manalo ng tatlong sunod upang magkampyon. Kinailangan nilang manalo ng dalawang sunod kontra ang Alaska Aces nitong PBA Philippine Cup quarterfinals. Kinailangan nilang bumawi matapos mahulog ng 0-2 kontra Star Hotshots sa semifinals. Ngayon, kailangan nilang bumangon muli, Never Say Die, para manalo ng 3-4.

Pero paano?

PBA Ph C F: 1 San Miguel V 7 Ginebra

Ginebra is on the rise
(Photo credit: sports5.ph)

Call it a date with destiny.

When Tim Cone was transplanted from his grand slam throne with the Star Hotshots to Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, expectations of turning the franchise around and multiple title runs were the norm. Everyone agreed that if anyone could make Ginebra’s giants, 7”0 Greg Slaughter and 6”9 Japeth Aguilar, regular fixtures in the PBA Playoffs and Finals it could be no one else but Cone.

And following that same logic, a fantasy showdown was born: Cone’s Ginebra versus the league’s current crème dela crème; San Miguel Beer and its own giant: the reigning 3x PBA MVP, 6”10, Junemar Fajardo.

Last season, San Miguel won its 2nd straight PBA Philippine Cup title which further cemented the supremacy of its local cast while Ginebra, only three conferences into the Cone Era, ended the season with a title of its own.

PBA Ph C SF 1 San Miguel v 4 TNT

Country's best players 1A, 1B
(Photo credit: pba-online.net)

Thank you Alex Cabagnot.

This corporate rivalry that has spilled on the hardcourt badly needed that "arrow" of yours, if only because Team MVP (through TNT Katropa) wasn't holding up its end of the bargain. While San Miguel Beer kept winning title after title, post-Chot Reyes TNT started to pile up the losses and early playoff exits.

Even their last title romp, over Rain or Shine just a few conferences back, can be marked with an asterisk because San Miguel's key players were hurt during that same conference so they can never really lay claim supremacy. Also, then TNT import Ivan Johnson simply went berserk against the whole league (in a good, basketball way of course)

So yeah, shoot those arrows and post those tweets. Keep them coming (because we sure as hell know that most of the guys on the roster, specially from TNT, won't really look to exchange violent, non-basketball related blows). Would love to see Gabby Espinas and Ranidel de Ocampo get into it. Maybe Arwind Santos and Kelly Williams. Ross' pesky defense versus Castro's genius.
Light up the fireworks.

Here are the match-ups:

PBA Ph C QF: 1 San Miguel v 8 Rain or Shine

Lassiter v Cruz will be key
(Photo credit: pba-online.net)

Will San Miguel waltz into the next round or will Rain or Shine prove (to itself, above all) that there is indeed life after Yeng Guiao and Paul Lee?

There are a lot of questions going on between this odd pairing, mostly because RoS on paper is a much better team than their lowly seeding would suggest. Can they beat San Miguel? History says they can, and on paper, while they do not have anyone standing on equal footing as San Miguel's 3x PBA MVP Junemar Fajardo and his backup Yancy de Ocampo, they are quite tall over-all.

Like, average height of roughly 6"3 spread around, tall AND wide.

Let's review the match-ups:

Instant classic

Big Beau vs The Kraken
(Photo credit to the owner)

If last night's game between the San Miguel Beermen (7-1) and the Rain or Shine Elastopainters (5-3) were a preview of the PBA Philippine Cup Finals; then we are not going to raise any complaints (and that's not simply because we are RoS fans).

The game had all the elements of a classic: starpower, hot-shooting for both sides, physicality, taunting, bum calls that could've changed the outcome of the match-- and those are words to cover the regulation period at that! For the Beermen, they were led by the usual suspects: 3x PBA MVP Junemar Fajardo 25p 17r, 1x PBA MVP Arwind Santos 17p 15r 5a, Alex Cabagnot 14p 3r 3a with some much needed support from RR Garcia 17p and Yancy de Ocampo 12p.

The Elastopainters on the other hand did their usual thing of "spreading out the offense" with Jeff Chan 11p, Chris Tiu 13p, Beau Belga 14p, Maverick Ahanmisi 9p and Dexter Maiquez 8p. Surprisingly misfiring was Jericho Cruz, but we'd like to give the Beermen credit for starting the game with defensive specialist Chris Ross on Cruz right away.

Just a few game notes:

Amazing Arwind

The Pinoy Spiderman
(Photo credit: Inquirer.net)

When it is all said and done, the San Miguel Beermen’s do-it-all forward and former PBA MVP Arwind Santos will undoubtedly go down as one of the best ever.

Is he a small forward? But he rebounds the basketball and often makes his best defensive stops around the paint. Is he a power forward? But he shoots threes, runs the floor and isn’t exactly built like a stocky one as per Filipino traditions.

Rocky Road

The Rock is on The Road to..
(Photo credit to the owner)

Well, the writing was indeed on the freaking wall.

The NLEX Road Warriors' 6"10 slotman Asi Taulava has officially requested team management for a trade after seeing his minutes and contribution to the team cut down by new head coach Yeng Guiao. This is not him being "selfish," but rather him coming to grips that Guiao's run and gun, spread-out offense is not suited for a low post banger such as himself. Specially not a 43-year-old one whose illustrious PBA career is already on borrowed time.

If you chanced upon our column on FoxSportsAsia.com; you would know that system-wise it was simply a bad fit for the Fil-Tonggan. Sure, he was averaging an "ageless" 14 points and 10 rebounds last season while also playing a lot as one of the team's anchors on both ends, but Guiao has never built his offense around one single player. He may give guys a few touches here and there (Paul Lee at Rain or Shine, Davonn Harp/ Enrico Villanueva at Red Bull), but he will never call successive plays for any one.

Who you gonna call?

UGH! APPLE-PEN!
(Photo credit: Paul Ryan Tan)

Don’t call it a comeback.

Veteran star Gary David is reportedly all set to sign a nine-month contract with the Mahindra Floodbusters after being left without a team on PBA opening day.

From a personal standpoint, we are thrilled that David is able to land another job which will allow him to secure the future of his family (if he hasn’t already). At day’s end, these free agents are providers whose sole source of income is the sport that they have come to know and love since their youths. No matter how we ridicule certain players about the way they play or look, we still respect them overall and show them love.

From a basketball blogger/ analyst’s standpoint, well, don’t expect too much out of the man dubbed “El Granada.”

Opening Day Game(s) notes

Come at us, brodies.
(Photo credit: Spin.ph)

The new PBA season is upon us!

Here are a few game notes from two days' worth of games, missed out on today's 2nd game: the Rain or Shine-TNT match, so you'll have to make do with the Blackwater vs Phoenix one for now. Will catch the game later on replay (thanks OSN and Aksyon International)!

Also, if you've been paying attention, it seems like they found a strong digital marketing arm to help keep in step with the times which is a good thing (someone send us free tickets or something! Lol)

San Miguel 96 - Star 88

- Alex Cabagnot, shooting guard. This is going to be fun.

PBA Ph Cup/Season Preview

The Face That Runs The Place
(Photo courtesy: philstar.com)

The new PBA season opens this November 20 and while official line-ups have yet to be announced, we could more or less predict who is coming in as conference/season favorites (unless a league balance shaking scenario happens i.e. Tim Cone moving/being moved to Ginebra last pre-season).

The Favorites

San Miguel Beermen
The defending PBA Philippine Cup champions will once again rely on 3x PBA MVP Junemar Fajardo to spearhead their title defense, with veterans Chris Ross, Alex Cabagnot, Arwind Santos and Marcio Lassiter all ready to chip in. Honestly, the way the league is being officiated at the moment, there is just no way to stop Fajardo in the post. This basically means that teams will have to keep more than one guy on Fajardo, which in turn opens up the floor for SMB’s shooters to pick their spots. They lost little used Ryan Arana but somehow ended up with former high school phenom Keith Agovida AND, more importantly, UAAP MVP RR Garcia. Arnold Van Opstal won’t be a threat right away, but anytime you can have another warm body—standing at an athletic and well-cut 6”9 at that, is always a plus.

PBA Draft 2016 Grades

Dem boyz
(Photo credit: inquirer.net)

The 2016 PBA Draft has finally come to an end and with it, the start of promising PBA careers for about 30 or more draftees. Though we will have to admit that some of the proceeding's luster was offset by the whole "special/ regular" thing and the fact that the Gilas picks were revealed by "insiders" as early as Friday morning.

You will have to bear with us regarding the order of the picks, since we were just as dumbfounded as the next guy. From what we have gathered, the "Gilas round" was the "first round" though the players were not called in order of selection (the PBA agreed to call the teams up to the stage alphabetically, which is probably a first in all of pro-sports). To avoid confusion, we are just going to put a "G" next to the names of the Gilas draftees, and start with 1 for Blackwater's Ael Banal and so on.

Here's our team grades:

On jammed signals and Beeracles

It has been a couple of days since we last saw both the San Miguel Beermen and TNT Katropa strutting their stuff in the 2016 PBA Governor's Cup which has yet to be concluded. This comes as a bit of a surprise to everyone, since both teams were the wise man's bets to make the season-ending Finals based on how they dominated the elimination round.

TNT simply crashed and burned in the semifinals, while the Beermen just couldn't "switch it on" like they thought they could after going on "cruise control" most of the way.

Let us start with Coach Jong Uichico's TNT first, shall we?

We have to apologize to the Katropa fans out there for basically raving about how their team was killing it this conference and that they were already assured of a seat in the Finals. As it turns out, the team nearly swept (10-1) through the Eliminations owing to their solid rotation but once they reached the playoffs and the core guys started going down, well, you know the rest.

PBA GC SF 2 San Miguel Beer vs 3 Ginebra

The Kraken vs The Aguila(r)
(Photo credit: Sports5.ph)

We are going to be in for quite a #TeamSanMiguel slobber knocker of a semifinals clash between sister teams: defending PBA Governor’s Cup champions San Miguel Beer and the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel.

In a sense, this is the basketball God’s way of “testing” head coach Tim Cone’s Ginebra squad: should they wish to further themselves and live up to championship expectations, then they will have to go through arguably the most dominant team in the last two seasons. It won’t be easy, since the Beermen appear to have (re)embraced a certain “win now, win big” philosophy anchored on making the most out of 2x PBA MVP Junemar Fajardo’s (still young) basketball career.

So who will win the Best-of-Five affair (which, in all honestly, would most likely command audiences worthy of any PBA Finals or All Star Game all in itself)? Here is our take:

2016 PBA Mock Draft Version 1

Who will be the 2016 PBA Draft Top Pick?
(Photo credit: Spin.ph)

The 2016 PBA Draft is just around the corner (October 30 to be exact) and we cannot help but feel excited with the names available. Sure, there is the possibility/ threat of a Gilas 5.0 pullout, but we are simply going to operate under the impression that the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas and the PBA will be able to come to an understanding by then.

Also, the PBA will be welcoming its 13th franchise—the Hapee Fresh Fighters which should provide us all with even more games to look forward to and stars to cheer for.

A special shout-out goes to the folks over at PBADraft.net, as we have admittedly lost track of “who picks where” because of our day jobs.  Trust that this is only the first version, and that we will most likely come up with updates in the coming weeks before D-day.

The Ginebra Blueprint (Part 1)

Lahing Ginebra, laking Ginebra
(Photo credit: Inquirer.net)

The Philippine Basketball Association appears to be at a complete loss when it comes to trying to achieve even a quarter of the Manila Classico live audiences for games that do not feature Barangay Ginebra (and in some ways, Star Hotshots).

Just how on earth did Ginebra grow into such a cash-cow, given the fact that it has hardly been in the PBA Finals while also being a non-family friendly brand in itself? Is it really because of Robert Jaworski, Sr.’s magic? The man dubbed as the “Living Legend” has been retired for nearly two decades now. Is it because of the “masa” charm of their players? Greg Slaughter, Sol Mercado and Chris Ellis do not exactly connect with the stereotype.

So what gives?