NLEX wants to terminate hefty JR Quiñahan PBA contract

JR Quiñahan, here in one of his last games with the Road Warriors, has apparently irked NLEX management by playing pickup ball. —PBA IMAGES

JR Quiñahan, who swung at a foreign player in a pickup game in a town in Cebu over the weekend, is not only facing a hefty fine from the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) but could find himself out of his mother team, NLEX, with which he has a live contract until the end of the year.

After coming off Achilles tendon surgery last year, at around the time Frankie Lim took over from Yeng Guiao, Quiñahan hasn’t practiced—nor played—with the Road Warriors, who are paying him the maximum salary of P420,000 a month, excluding bonuses, which he stands to lose.

“There was already an inquiry on that—for NLEX to rescind the remainder of his contract,” an unimpeachable source told the Inquirer Sunday night, hours after a video showing Quiñahan and three other PBA players seeing action in a pickup game in a town in Cebu.

The video went viral because of a fight that also saw Rain or Shine’s Beau Belga throwing the ball at the foreign player Quiñahan swung at.

Jio Jalalon of Magnolia and Robert Bolick of NorthPort were also seen on the video but weren’t part of the melee. Should Belga, Jalalon and Bolick turn out to have played in a game unsanctioned by their mother teams like Quiñahan, they could be fined by the PBA a maximum of P50,000.

Dodging practices

Quiñahan’s case is a lot different, though, as a team source confirmed that NLEX is apparently disgusted at learning that Quiñahan is already in playing shape after dodging practices and showing up just for shooting drills, some weights training and strengthening during practices.

PBA commissioner Willie Marcial will also summon the players, as the league specifically prohibits its players from playing pickup games since they have live contracts and could injure themselves.

“We allow players to join these games as long as they were allow[ed] by their teams,” Marcial told the Inquirer in Filipino on Sunday. “If not, they’ll be in big trouble.”

There have been cases in the past where players were sanctioned for taking part in unsanctioned games.

“We have been receiving reports that he has started playing (outside of NLEX) since February, though we never confirmed that because all the while, he was saying that he was injured, and we continue to pay his salary in whole,” the source added. “We will rescind his contract on that basis.”

Jalalon and current San Miguel Beer forward Vic Manuel were suspended in 2020 while Ping Exciminiano even suffered an injury in one exhibition.

Videos of the brawl have surfaced on social media, spoiling the match pitting a local team reinforced by PBA cagers against a foreign squad.

Based on one video, Quiñahan was seen throwing punches at a foreign player while Belga threw the ball at the same cager before cooler heads eventually intervene.