by Jonas Terrado
Action in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup began yesterday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum with the dilemma of beating the basketball superpower that is the San Miguel Beermen looming large for teams seeking to break their myth of invincibility.
“It’s going to take another really special team to beat those guys!” Barangay Ginebra San Miguel forward Joe Devance tweeted last April 9, three days after the Beermen won their fourth straight Philippine Cup crown.
Asked to expound on his social media post, Devance said San Miguel is a team like no other.
“I would honestly say that they’re the best team I’ve played against,” he told the Bulletin last week. “It’s gonna take another truly-inspired, truly-talented and well-put together team to beat those guys.
“They have the same players for like 4-5 years and they had before a lot of drama, they had a lot of egos. I mean they had egos now, but they put it aside, got together and say ‘Let’s wins championships’ and they’re playing like it,” he added. “I mean, pretty crazy how good that team is.”
And with top draft pick Christian Standhardinger joining forces with the talented starting five of June Mar Fajardo, Arwind Santos, Marcio Lassiter, Chris Ross and Alex Cabagnot and having an import in Troy Gillenwater for the midseason tournament, Devance agrees that the gap has become wider between San Miguel and the rest of the teams.
Meralco coach Norman Black seconded Devance’s observations.
“My biggest concern was the trade that was made. It just made them even stronger,” said Black, mentioning the deal last October that saw Kia sending its right to pick Standhardinger to San Miguel for three players and a future draft pick.
“That trade has kinda tipped the balance in their favor for the next few years to continue winning All-Filipino championships, because in my mind Standhardinger will be one of the best players in the league as soon as he arrives,” Black added. “So yeah, they’re still pretty good.”
While Devance and Black share the same sentiments of the Beermen’s dominance, they also see kinks in their armor.
“We just have to play the games and see what happens,” Black said. “Things do happen in basketball so you never know when things will change and get better or get worse.
“They won the last four All-Filipinos but they haven’t won every conference so they can be beaten, particularly if you can get a good import,” he added.
Devance, meanwhile, sees Ginebra as San Miguel’s biggest challenger, something fans and observers can also agree.
“I think of all the teams we have the best chance of beating them,” Devance said. “We have the height, we have the talent. I don’t think any other team has the same height as we do so if there’s a team that can beat them, it would be us.
“We just have to be a hundred percent, we have to be healthy, like everybody has to be on their A-game for us to do that. So if we do that, then I’m confident we can make it a series and beat them.”