Is Kia Motors serious about its PBA stint?

If it’s  true that boxing icon Manny Pacquiao has sealed an agreement with Columbia Autocar Corporation (CAC) appointing him playing coach of the new PBA ballclub, then it becomes clear that the primary objective of the company in joining the 40-year-old professional cage league is to generate maximum publicity and advertising mileage for its products.

Competing in the sport of basketball seems only a secondary, or even a minor consideration.

Manny, of course, is all excited about the prospect of coaching and playing for a professional cage team.

The playing part could have been a childhood dream of his. Manny said Robert Jaworski was his basketball idol.

Close to two decades ago when he was not yet that popular, I remember Manny guesting in a SCOOP session at Kamayan West, where PBA legends Sonny Jaworski and Mon Fernandez, then still active, were also scheduled to appear.

The Pacman’s portion was over, but he decided to stay behind, sitting quietly in a corner, all by his lonesome, just listening to the interview with Jaworski and Fernandez.

Nobody was paying much attention to him then. Everyone—including the waiters—was fussing over the Big J.

* * *

As early as now, I am being confronted with wagers from a couple of colleagues who don’t believe the Pacman plan will push through.

“Kia is coming in from the cold, they don’t know the idiosyncrasies in the PBA,” said one of the scribes.

“Most likely, they don’t even know that Pacquiao will have to go through the rookie draft before he can play. Is he willing to do that?”

“Now I’m not sure if the board is willing to exempt him from the draft? If not, think  of what could happen,” said the other scribe.

“He could be picked up by any of the other teams… And then sold to Kia for a huge amount of money.”

The two scribes are strongly against Manny Pacquiao coaching or playing in the PBA. If he does, nobody will take the country’s premier cage league seriously anymore,” they said.

I agree! It’s like Floyd Mayweather playing and coaching in the NBA, although he wants to buy the LA Clippers.

It’s hard to imagine anything like that happening in the United States.

But in the Philippines, anything is possible.

HOOPVINE: LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling is two steps ahead of the NBA which plans to force him to sell the franchise… Reports have it that he already sold it to estranged wife Shelly Sterling, who already owns 50 percent of the franchise… The last time I saw lawyer Dominique Black, she was only 12 years old… Now she’s already 27, and has a masters in Business Administration… Her father Norman said she plans to practice law here in the Philippines before she flies to the US to take the bar exams there.