WITH A banner season behind it, the Philippine Basketball Association takes the lid off its 38th edition today with glitzy opening rites and a game that guarantees solid backing at the gates.
To be known starting today as Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, the crowd-darling Gin Kings will battle newcomer Global Port in the only game scheduled at p.m. that officially starts the Philippine Cup at Smart Araneta Coliseum in Cubao.
Aside from adding two words to its name and two potentially prolific Fil-American rookies, the Kings remain the same team built around reigning MVP Mark Caguioa, who will try to lead the side to a first title series in two years.
Ginebra has been rated in the middle of the pack in several polls prior to the tournament, but no one can really tell what the additions of Chris Ellis and Keith Jensen, the sixth and eighth overall picks in the Draft, respectively, could bring to the squad.
Ellis is a livewire performer who played for the Philippine five that won the Southeast Asian Games gold medal handily in Jakarta last year.
With the Kings, the 6-foot-4 swingman could blend in perfectly with the bevy of guards that coach Siot Tanquingcen has, including Caguioa, who last season became the league’s first MVP that never played in any three of the title series.
As in the past years, the only weakness in the Ginebra roster seems to be at the middle with no truly dominating big man out there
“The team has a great outlook for the coming season,” Tanquingcen, whose wards finished sixth here last year, said. “What we need to develop is the chemistry. We need to make the players jell.”
Tanquingcen added star point guard LA Tenorio from Alaska in a blockbuster pre-season trade that loaded his guard rotation even more.
Tenorio, though, will be coming into the season with a slightly bruised left hamstring, an injury he sustained with Smart Gilas in a losing game against Qatar in the Fiba-Asia Cup.
The Batang Pier debut as a PBA member with PBA Press Corps scoring champion Gary David now teaming up with former two-time MVP Willie Miller.
“It’s going to be an early baptism of fire,” Global Port owner Mikee Romero said.
David scored close to 26 points a contest last season with Powerade and became the most devastating offensive force the league has seen in close to two decades.
His partnership with Miller seems to be an exciting tandem, and the Batang Pier have good back-up personnel that they hope could take them past the elimination round.
David will be coming into the season in peak form after spending the last two months with the Smart Gilas-Pilipinas squad that won the Jones Cup in Taipei and finished fourth in the Fiba-Asia Cup in Japan.
The Philippine Cup will be the longest tournament of the season and the PBA hopes to pick up where it left off in terms of live attendance.
Last season, after producing three different champions, the PBA grossed close to P114 million in gate receipts, an all-time mark which the league hopes to eclipse this year using a slightly different playoff format.