Leading rookie Lassiter bound for Petron Blaze

Lassiter's stock rose following a tremendous performance in the PBA Philippine Cup playoffs. Photo by Nuki Sabio, PBA

MANILA, Philippines—Petron Blaze will be getting an added boost in the coming PBA Governors’ Cup.

Marcio Lassiter, the new frontrunner in the Rookie of the Year race, is headed to Petron as part of the recent San Miguel Corp. purchase of the Powerade/Coca-Cola franchise, which the Inquirer broke last week.

Lassiter is the first big name the Tigers will be trading in the coming days before the franchise is turned over to the San Miguel group at the end of the current season in August.

Ramon S. Ang, the president of San Miguel Corp., and Bill Schultz, the CEO of Coca-Cola Bottlers, recently came to terms for SMC’s reacquisition of Coca-Cola’s PBA franchise, reportedly to the tune of P100 million.

Under the deal, Lassiter, who finished fifth in the Best Player of the Conference race, will go to the Boosters in exchange for Nonoy Baclao and former Letran star Rey Guevarra.

Only the approval of league commissioner Chito Salud is needed although his office had said, at the close of business hours on Friday, that no player trade form from both San Miguel and Coca-Cola has been submitted.

Salud will not be able to act on it until Feb. 9 at the earliest. He is on vacation abroad.

Lassiter forms part of Powerade’s Big Three together with Gary David and No. 1 rookie pick JV Casio.

Emerging as a legitimate star during the playoffs, Lassiter’s stock rose with no less than Barangay Ginebra, Petron’s sister team, reportedly interested in his services.

The sale of the franchise will be tackled later in the year by the PBA’s board of governors, and Powerade would need no less than two-thirds of the body voting in its favor for the sale to push through.

Teams being sold have taken practically the same route.

Days before disbanding, Sta. Lucia traded Kelly Williams and Ryan Reyes to TNT before selling the franchise to the Texters, who converted the team to what is now Meralco.

Barako Bull also dealt away its top players before the team was purchased by Air21’s Bert Lina at the end of last season for P50 million.