By Jonas Terrado
Game Tomorrow
(Smart Araneta Coliseum)
7 p.m. – Ginebra vs San Miguel
It’s probably safe to assume that winning the Best Player of the Conference award for the second time this season will virtually clinch a record fifth Most Valuable Player for San Miguel Beer star June Mar Fajardo.
Fajardo led the BPC race at the end of the Commissioner’s Cup semifinals with 39.12 Statistical Points while voters seemed convinced that the 6-foot-10 giant is deserving of being named the most outstanding player of the league’s midseason tournament.
The Best Player of the Conference will be announced before tomorrow’s fourth game of the Commissioner’s Cup Finals between Fajardo’s San Miguel Beer and Barangay Ginebra San Miguel at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Also to be named is the Best Import award which is tightly-contested by Ginebra’s Justin Brownlee and San Miguel’s Renaldo Balkman.
History suggests that a player that wins two BPC trophies in one season will end up taking home the league’s most prestigious individual award.
Sunkist’s Vergel Meneses captured his only MVP award in 1995 after being named the Best Player of both the All-Filipino and Commissioner’s Cup, tournaments that saw the Orange Juicers emerging as champions.
Fajardo’s mentor Danny Ildefonso bagged the Commissioner’s Cup and Governors’ Cup Best Player awards in the 2000 season on his way to claiming the MVP for the first time in his career.
Ildefonso would repeat the trend the following season, sweeping the Best Player plum in all three conferences to become the sixth multiple MVP winner.
Eric Menk of Barangay Ginebra was named BPC in 2004 Fiesta Conference and 2005 Philippine Cup, both times seeing the Kings winning the crown, to eventually claim the only MVP award of his career.
His former teammate Mark Caguioa was 2012 MVP after taking Best Player of the Conference honors in the Commissioner’s Cup and Governors’ Cup. It was likewise his first and still only MVP trophy.
Fajardo pulled off the same trick in 2015 as the Best Player of the Philippine Cup and Governors’ Cup to begin the first of a streak of four straight MVP plums.
Forty percent of the Statistical Points (SP) will be used to determine the Best Player winner while the remaining 60 will come from votes from the media (30%), players (25%) and the PBA Commissioner’s Office (5%).
A distant contender in Fajardo’s bid for another BPC is Alaska’s Vic Manuel, who was third in the SP race at 35.44 after a sensational campaign that saw the veteran forward producing a streak of 11 straight 20-point games.
But the semifinal meeting between San Miguel and Alaska which the Beermen won in four games may have clinched the award in Fajardo’s favor after being hailed as the team’s best local player during the series while Manuel couldn’t lift the Aces further despite his efficient showing.
