by Dave Albarado
SMB is rebuilding to stay competitive
Normally, teams rebuild their line-up when they start to lose. Teams which end up at the bottom of the standings, more than often, would start to trade their players, take advantage of their position in the draft and lure superstars in the free agency.
In the PBA, rebuilding is a normal thing but there are teams that are continuously on the rebuilding mode to the point they mess with the line-up by trading players which could be valuable pieces for the franchise—and I’m looking at you, Terrafirma.
The San Miguel Beermen (SMB), the most successful PBA franchise and the only surviving pioneer team in the league, has traded not only 1 but 2 of the pieces of its vaunted Death 5 line-up. First one to go was Arwind Santos who got traded to Northport for Vic Manuel. SMB then made a deal to ship Alex Cabagnot to Terrafirma for Simon Enciso.
Whether the Cabagnot-Enciso trade is a win-win for both SMB and Terrafirma or not, only time can tell.
Yet, if sportswriter Snow Badua is to be believed in, there is an eye-popping offer for SMB star guard Terrence Romeo to play in the Japanese B-League. We still have to take this information with a grain of salt. Then again, this could be a huge deal for SMB to lose a superstar at the height of its rebuilding process. There is no telling whether other stars such as CJ Perez or Junemar Fajardo could be other targets of Asian leagues like in China or in Korea.
No one can really blame SMB for dealing its players right away while it is still ahead.
The franchise has a proud winning tradition and to see the San Miguel Corporation’s flagship team become the cellar dweller of the league is an insult and a huge embarrassment to the SMC organization itself. Thus, the powers behind the SMB team will move heaven and earth to remain competitive, even at the expense of its fans’ ire. It was reported that the Cabagnot-Enciso deal should also include Roosevelt Adams. However, fans reacted to the possibility of Terrafirma dealing Adams to San Miguel.
My piece of unsolicited advise to SMB is to grab the best available talent for Terrence Romeo and ship the talented guard to Ginebra or Purefoods.
This way, SMB will not suffer loss of talent like what NLEX experienced when Kiefer Ravena left the Road Warriors to play for Shiga Lakestars in Japan.