FILE – Greg Slaughter. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines—Trading away a key piece is always sure to raise eyebrows, but NorthPort said that shipping Christian Standhardinger to Barangay Ginebra for Greg Slaughter was the club’s initiative.
Batang Pier head coach Pido Jarencio said Friday that the transaction was something that the team needed to make.
“I’m okay with the trade and actually we were the ones that initiated it,” said Jarencio in Filipino. “We made a trade and it wasn’t a small one, literally. We traded one big man and we took in another.”
Jarencio said that they wanted to get someone who can dominate the paint for them and although Standhardinger can do that, he completely lacked rim protection.
“We saw him return through his social media posts and we saw that he was training and I’m actually happy for him because now that he’s back he wants to prove something,” said Jarencio.
“That’s why we made the move because we saw what we needed in him.”
The Batang Pier were dead last in blocks per game this past conference with 6-foot-9 Standhardinger averaging 0.1 in the PBA bubble.
Even during his best conference in the 2019 Governors’ Cup where he was the Best Player of the Conference, Standhardinger was at 0.1 blocks per game in 11 matches with NorthPort.
In comparison, Slaughter’s lone Best Player of the Conference run in the 2017 Governors’ Cup saw him average 1.6 blocks per game.
“We had a 6’9” BPC before and we’re just exchanging him for a 7-foot BPC,” said Jarencio.