San Miguel Beermen’s CJ Perez and Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings’ Christian Standhardinger in a heated race for the PBA Commissioner’s Cup Best Player award. –MARLO CUETO/FILE PHOTOS
Barangay Ginebra’s Christian Standhardinger and San Miguel Beer’s CJ Perez are in a tight battle for the Best Player of the Conference award following the conclusion of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup semifinals.
Standhardinger maintained his lead with 35.7 Statistical Points, but only has a slight lead over Perez with 35.5 based on the tally released by the league on Friday.
NorthPort’s Arvin Tolentino is also not far behind with 35.1 SPs, TNT’s Calvin Oftana is fourth with 34.1 while Ginebra’s Scottie Thompson completed the five candidates for the award with 31.0.
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The PBA will announce the BPC winner before Game 4 of the San Miguel-Magnolia Finals series on Feb. 9 at Smart Araneta Coliseum. Forty-five percent of the stats will be used while the rest are through votes from the media (30%) and players (25%).
The winner is also going to be an automatic candidate for the Most Valuable Player award, provided he plays at least 70 percent of the games during the season.
Standhardinger averaged 16.5 points, 9.9 rebounds and 5.0 assists in 15 games as he helped Ginebra reach the semifinals despite having to field a different import in Tony Bishop instead of old reliable Justin Brownlee.
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But Standhardinger struggled during the semis as Ginebra was swept in three games by Perez and San Miguel.
That could shore up Perez’s bid to win a first-ever Best Player of the Conference plum. He had 16.4 points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.9 steals in 16 games as San Miguel made its way to the Finals despite starting the conference with injuries followed by an import change with Bennie Boatwright in lieu of Ivan Aska.
Tolentino was the tournament’s top scorer with 22.4 points before NorthPort was eliminated by Ginebra in the quarters.