The battle for the Best Player of the Conference is now between Ginebra’s Greg ‘Gregzilla’ Slaughter and Meralco’s Chris ‘Awesome’ Newsome.
Their battle for the conference’s highest individual award is likely to add color to what is expected to be an emotional best-of-seven title series in the season-ending PBA Governors’ Cup.
Slaughter and Newsome have kept their respective bids for a first career BPC following a successful semifinal stint of their teams with Meralco sweeping Star in the five-game series while Ginebra edged TNT KaTropa, 3-1, in a controversial series.
The two former Ateneo stalwarts finished in the Top 5 of the BPC after the semifinals, with Slaughter at No. 3 and Newsome at No. 4 behind June Mar Fajardo of San Miguel Beer and Jayson Castro of TNT.
SMB’s Arwind Santos wound up fifth.
Despite the exit of SMB in the playoffs after losing to twice-to-beat Ginebra in the quarterfinals, Fajardo has remained on top of the BPC race with 38.455 Statistical Points (SP), followed by Castro with 33.563.
However, with the two mainstays of Gilas Pilipinas out of the playoffs, it’s now Slaughter versus Newsome for the BPC, an award given to the top local performer in each conference of the PBA.
