By REYNALD MAGALLON
To no one’s surprise, Converge selected Justine Baltazar as the top overall pick while former NBA G-League player Sedrick Barefield was tapped second by Blackwater during the PBA Season 49 Rookie Draft at Glorietta Makati on Sunday, July 14.
Baltazar, the best big man in this draft, as expected got reunited with his former college coach Aldin Ayo as the FiberXers finally got their hands on a talent they long wanted to pair with Justin Arana at the frontline.
With Baltazar and Arana manning the paint, Converge has finally formed a young core that also features promising guards in Alec Stockton, JL Delos Santos, Deschon Winston and Mike Nieto.
Blackwater, on the other hand, got a potential franchise cornerstone in Barefield, arguably the best talent available in the pool. At 27 years old, the highly touted guard is entering his prime years and can provide the much-needed scoring punch for the Bossing.
Meanwhile, Barangay Ginebra used the third overall pick it acquired in a controversial trade with Terrafirma to take former Far Eastern University standout and former Korean Basketball League and Japan B.League import RJ Abarrientos.
With Abarrientos, the Kings also successfully injected young blood to its lineup – the very same reason why the team dealt both Christian Standhardinger and Stanley Pringle to Terrafirma in exchange of Stephen Holt and Isaac Go a day before the draft.
Phoenix then selected Ateneo standout Kai Ballungay at the fourth pick while NorthPort tapped Dave Ildefonso to complete this year’s Top 5 picks.
Draft Combine Most Valuable Player Jonnel Policarpio went to NLEX at the No. 6 pick while Rain or Shine tapped 32-year-old Caelan Tiongson for the seventh pick. The Elasto Painters also pulled off the first surprise pick in the draft, tapping unheralded Fil-Swedish guard Felix Lemetti with their eighth pick.
Guards were then selected back-to-back with ninth and 10th picks with Jerom Lastimosa going to Magnolia and Mark Nonoy heading to Terrafirma. Wrapping up the first round was the Philippine Cup champion Meralco selecting CJ Cansino at 11th overall and San Miguel making another surprise choice in Avan Nava at the 12th pick.
Former La Salle star Evan Nelle, a projected first one rounder, slid to the second round at 14th overall by NorthPort succeeding ROS’ 13th overall pick in Francis Escandor.
In all, a total of 48 players were drafted out of the 67 in the draft pool.
