Pacquiao scores ahead of 1st KIA game in PBA

DOUBTERS and detractors indeed outnumber those who believe Manny Pacquiao can score impressively in the new PBA season which starts next October.

That’s to be expected.

Pacquiao, who’s all set to coach newcomer KIA Kamao in the PBA, can’t hold a candle to Tim Cone or Yeng Guiao when in comes to basketball.

The eight-division world boxing titlist had indeed played his share of sandlot and pick-up basketball.

But has he, for example, earned and logged enough know-how to merit handling a team in the pro league?

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Don’t ask coach Pacquiao.

No, he doesn’t say he’s out to revolutionize basketball hereabouts by wading in cold and bare into the exacting coaching battlefield.

However, the man sounds solemnly sure he could, at least, make an impression.

How? He’ll do it his way.

He speaks about hard work, loads and loads of it, for his team.

They all will have to train as hard as he does, and maybe more.

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Nothing so far on team philosophy.

Of course, he has hinted Kia Kamao will be loading extensively on defense.

That’s the closest he has said something about team chemistry.

The Kia team will have to train like him, under him, Pacquiao swears.

Maybe he’s also concocting new offensive plots his unique way.

But that part of the Kia team story could start being told only after the newcomer squad has scored its first goal in the coming 40th PBA season, and the maiden basket need not be by Pacquiao himself.

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Meanwhile, there were two separate boxing reports from Davao del Sur yesterday which, if properly assessed, should count as twin wins for Pacquiao, way ahead of Kia Kamao’s debut in the PBA.

First, Team Pacman grabbed five of 13 golds staked on Sunday to clinch the overall title in the PLDT-Abap National Boxing Championships at Digos City Gymnasium.

Five more gold medals were to be contested when the Inquirer’s Roy Luarca filed the report.

Second, there was an exclusive by the Inquirer’s Aquiles Zunio on how Pacquiao has quietly established a successful boxing gym and academy in his 1,000-square-meter lot a few minutes’ ride from Digos.

The Manny Pacquiao Boxing Academy in Digos was mainly responsible for Team Pacman’s dominant showing in the PLDT-Abap national boxing tournament.

Established last November, and still on its finishing stage, the gym-academy has already produced two national amateur boxers.

But the bigger victory comes in the form of free education, board and lodging, to poor, promising young fighters.

Explained the Kia Kamao team coach: “Because of poverty, I failed to finish schooling. I want these young boxers to finish a degree. I’m  not sure whether they would succeed in boxing.”

It’s a “no-schooling, no-boxing” program.