All systems go for Philippine Cup despite leadership squabble

Amid the worst crisis that hit the Philippine Basketball Association since it opened in 1975, Asia’s pioneering professional cage league takes the wraps off its 43rd Season on Sunday, with San Miguel Beer’s bid for a four-peat in the Philippine Cup lost in the din of all the controversies.

Chito Narvasa sits as commissioner—but for how much longer?—for the third year when lavish opening rites usher in the new season at 4 p.m. at Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, before the Beermen get their bid rolling against Phoenix Petroleum at 6:15 p.m.

June Mar Fajardo also comes into the new season with the chance to extend his dominance and bag a fifth straight Most Valuable Player trophy, even as the Beermen play half of the year sans controversial new acquisition Christian Standhardinger.

But even without the 6-foot-7 Filipino-German rookie, the Beermen still flaunt arguably the most balanced, firepower-packed roster in the conference, including another former MVP Arwind Santos and a slew of guards.

Louie Alas returns as a head coach for the first time since handling Talk ‘N Text early in the previous decade, calling the shots for the Fuel Masters who underachieved in the last two seasons under Ariel Vanguardia.

Alas will have his hands full right in his first game back, against the consensus team to beat—for the season and not just this tournament—on the opposite side of the floor.

“There’s no doubt about that, they are a loaded team,” Alas told the Inquirer over the phone, hours after prepping his Fuel Masters on Saturday, in describing the Beermen.

“But if there’s a time to play them, this is it. It would be more difficult playing them later [in the conference] when they have jelled better and are in better physical shape.”

Matthew Wright will be Alas’ top gun, but Phoenix will enter a new era in its PBA participation by becoming a defense-oriented team, the mentality of all of Alas’ teams in the past.

And Alas acknowledges that the 6-foot-10 Fajardo will be his biggest problem—literally and figuratively.

“There’s no one man in the league that can stop him one-on-one,” Alas conceded. “That’s why we have devised something for him and we just hope that it works.”

Standhardinger, the first overall Draft pick acquired by San Miguel from Kia, will join San Miguel in the middle of the Commissioner’s Cup at the earliest as he plays out his contract with the Hong Kong Eastern Long Lions in the Asean Basketball League.