HARBOUR CENTRE OWNER MIKEE Romero seemed to be more excited than his player Jason Castro, who had just signed a 7-month contract with the Singapore Slingers, one of the 18 teams in the Australia-based NBL (National Basketball League).
“Slingers owner Bob Turner saw Jason play in Singapore last year and in the Jakarta Seaba last April. He was very impressed with him. The Slingers have been looking for a good point guard for two years, and now they believe they’ve found the right guy. “This is one of the biggest developments in Philippine basketball. Jason is the first Filipino to play in one of the top five professional basketball leagues in the world,” Mikee texted from San Francisco, where he is currently vacationing with his family, close to midnight on Friday.
Mikee said Jason would be paid a total of Australian $60,000 excluding bonuses, which is equivalent to about P1.8 million
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“I’m very proud of Jason. Now he would be playing alongside real giants. Players in the NBL are just as tall as players in the NBA,” Mikee said.
Harbour Centre defeated the Slingers in an exhibition game in Singapore last November.
“I guess the Slingers must’ve been fascinated at how a diminutive team like ours managed to beat a tall team like theirs.”
The Slingers’ average height is 6-foot-7. They have a 7-4 cager which should offset the height disadvantage of Jason, who’s only 5-9.
Turner, who was at the PBA games last Friday, said he spotted other potential NBL talents in the pro league. He remembers only one name, though: James Yap.
According to the Slingers owner, Jason will be leaving the Philippines in June or July. The NBL season starts in September and ends in February of 2009.
Turner has high hopes for and great expectations from the Filipino cager.
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During the press conference at the Saisaki Edsa last Saturday, Turner informed Jason that a provision in his contract allows him to bring with him immediate members of his family: His wife and children if he’s married or his parents if he’s still single.
According to Paul Monozca, the Singapore-based Filipino who accompanied Turner to the Philippines, the Slingers is an Australian team based in Singapore.
“Jason will therefore be traveling with the Slingers from Singapore to Australia regularly. The team will be in Singapore half of the time and in Australia the other half.”
A close friend of Mikee, Paul is chairman of the Parmon Group of Singapore.
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Asian Volleyball Confederation director Tonyboy Liao, who’s also chairman of the Asian Beach Volleyball Council, wrote to react to an e-mail from a scribe which we published in this column some issues ago.
According to Tonyboy, beach volleyball Fil-Ams Diane Pascua and Heidi Ilustre had read the column and were prompted “to make it known that it is not true that it is the Philippine Volleyball Federation (PVF) that has been supporting them in their bid for an Olympic slot in Beijing.”
From the time the two Fil-Ams first represented the Philippines in the 2005 Manila Southeast Asian Games, Tonyboy said they have never gotten any financial assistance from the PVF.
“They didn’t get any help in the 2006 Doha Asian Games nor the SEA Games in Thailand, last December.”
“To this day, Diane and Heidi are being supported by private entities and individuals, including the undersigned,” Tonyboy said.
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HOOPVINE: The last I heard, Sonny Cabatu’s hospital bills in the US have reached $250,000. The good news is, Sonny won’t have to spend a single cent, having qualified as an indigent case. By now, Sonny has probably been discharged from the hospital where he was treated for a clot lodged in his lung… Congratulations to William Fong’s CKP 168, whose Division F team recently won the Corpball title… The 2006-2007 edition of Hardcourt, the official PBA Annual, will be launched in three venues starting at the Burger King in Glorietta, Makati, on May 8 at 4 p.m. Last season’s MVP Willie Miller, board chairman Ricky Vargas and other PBA stars will be there to sign autographs. Everyone’s invited.
