Mercado, Maierhofer join San Miguel; Cabagnot to Globalport

MANILA, Philippines — The one-on-one trade involving Alex Cabagnot of San Miguel Beer and Sol Mercado of Globalport was formalized and approved Tuesday together with three other transactions involving the Beermen and the Batang Pier.

Aside from naming a new coach in Biboy Ravanes and promoting American Todd Purves to an active first assistant’s role, the Beermen tinkered with their already potent lineup after their faltering finish in the PBA PLDT MyDSL Philippine Cup, a tournament they were expected to dominate.

The Beermen also acquired former Rookie of the Year Rico Maierhofer from Barako Bull by giving up third-string shooting forward Jason Deutchman and their second round Draft rights in 2016 and 2017.

Globalport, which also has a new coach in former UAAP champion mentor Pido Jarencio, also did not stop after acquiring Cabagnot as the Batang Pier traded for Bonbon Custodio of Air21 by giving up Jonas Villanueva.

Given away by Barako Bull Villanueva, a reliable point guard who has been injury-plagued of late, was actually given away by Barako Bull for Leo Najorda of Globalport, but the Batang Pier immediately traded for Custodio, an underachieving former UE Warrior in the UAAP.

Jarencio, who coached the University Santo Tomas Growling Tigers to the 2006 UAAP championship, actually discovered Custodio in some sandlot games in Quezon City.

But Jarencio never got the chance to play Custodio at Santo Tomas because Custodio was already playing for the University of the East when Jarencio took over from Lester del Rosario before the start of the 2006 season.

Ravanes takes over from Gee Abanilla at the helm of Petron, though Purves, who coached Indonesia in the Asean Basketball League, will be more involved in game situations, much like the team did when it still had Rajko Toroman.

Restructuring the team again San Miguel, then known as Petron Blaze, was eliminated in just five games by Rain or Shine in the Final Four two weeks ago—a departure that got management thinking of restructuring the team yet again.

Abanilla was “kicked upstairs” and is now the team manager of San Miguel/Petron, which will have a fifth head coach in the last two seasons counting the stints of Olsen Racela-Toroman, Siot Tanquingcen and Ato Agustin.