By REYNALD MAGALLON
San Miguel Beer’s June Mar Fajardo and Barangay Ginebra’s Justin Brownlee reached new milestones in their respective PBA careers following the thrilling match of their teams on Friday, Feb. 17.
The only six-time MVP in Fajardo became only the sixth player to haul down at least the 2,000 offensive rebounds joining an elite company of big men and centers in Mon Fernandez, Abet Guidaben, Jerry Codinera, Asi Taulava and Ali Peek.
Fajardo scored his first two points in the Beermen’s 102-99 victory over the Kings, off an offensive rebound which happened to be the 2000th of his PBA career.
The Kraken went on to pull down 11 more the rest of the way as he finished with 18 huge rebounds to go along with his 10 points.
Brownlee, on the other hand, moved up to the fourth spot of the PBA all-time scoring list among imports, passing the 5,386 points of the late Lew Massey right on his first basket in the game.
The Ginebra resident import scored on a quick pull up jumper after the jump ball that gave the Kings the 2-0 lead with just 12 seconds passing the clock. However, nothing came easy for Brownlee from there as he only finished with 21 points but still enough to hike his total score to 5,406.
Only three players, legendary imports at that, are only above Brownlee in the scoring list with another well-known Tim Cone reinforcement in Sean Chamber sitting at the third spot with 8,225 points. The other two were the late Bobby Ray Parks Sr. which had 8,955 points while current Meralco head coach Norman Black sits atop with a seemingly unbreakable record of 11,329 points.
