CANDON CITY, Ilocos Sur – San Miguel coach Leo Austria knows rivals are loading up with tall, highly-credentialed imports to have a better shot at beating the Beermen in the PBA 50th Season Commissioner’s Cup.
Austria admitted the road to a second championship this season will be a lot tougher for the Beermen with rivals upgrading their rosters. That includes TNT, which brought in NBA veteran Bol Bol after losing to SMB in the PBA Philippine Cup Finals.
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All these moves, Austria said, are meant to make these teams better equipped to match up against nine-time PBA MVP June Mar Fajardo, easily the most dominant force in the league.
“This coming conference, (I’m) a little bit worried,” said Austria on Friday upon his arrival in this bustling city for the PBA All-Star Weekend. “Because a lot of teams really are getting better. In the last few weeks, alam n'yo naman naging movements sa PBA. There’s a lot of trades. There's a lot of acquisitions from those teams.
“Isa lang nakikita ko, parang to stop our big man from getting into the shaded area to score a lot of points just like what happened in the championship with June Mar - 29 points and 23 rebounds (in Game 6). And I thought na it’s simply because of him (Fajardo).
“That’s why ‘yung import, talagang I think ang average height ng import ngayon is 6-10 1/2 siguro. With the presence of Bol Bol, alam na natin kung ano ang purpose nila. They want to dominate the shaded area, and what more kung those imports can score a lot. So that’s why I’m worried about this conference,” said Austria.
Aside from the 7-foot-3 Bol, other tall imports include G League veteran Kylor Kelley of Converge (7-footer), Sam Deguara of the Macau Black Bears (7-foot-6), and Mubashar Ali of Terrafirma (7-footer).
For their part, San Miguel went with 6-foot-11 Marcus Lee, whose last stint was in Australia where he played for Cairns Taipans in the National Basketball League.
With all the teams upgrading, Austria said the Beermen can't afford a slow start to the mid-season conference.
“We just returned to our training last Monday, and the other teams, I think two months na sila nag-training. Kami pang second week pa lang namin ngayon. But I hope na yung mga players namin have learned a lot from the past championship namin dahil we cannot afford to have another bad start with 0-2.
"Sana nga mangyari ulit, 0-2 tapos na-straight namin. Pero this time, it’s impossible to do that again because a lot of teams, talagang ready for this conference and makikita naman natin ‘yung improvement ng bawat team,” said Austria.
Austria said the tougher competition will make the league better.
“I think it’s good for the PBA dahil it will become exciting para this coming conference especially the other teams getting a lot of big imports,” said Austria.
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