BOL Manute Bol is not eligible for the PBA Commissioner’s Cup Best Import award.
The pro league came out with the official candidates for the award honoring the outstanding reinforcements in the mid-season conference and the son of the late NBA player Manute Bol was not on the list.
The top four imports vying for the award in the midseason conference featuring import without any height restrictions are Barangay Ginebra’s Justin Brownlee, Jaylen Johnson of Rain or Shine, TNT’s Chris McCullough, and Patrick Gardner of Meralco.
READ Brownlee banks in winner as Ginebra beats TNT in Game 1 thriller
As per a long-standing PBA rule, imports whose teams advanced to the semis are automatically qualified for the award, as long as they're still playing until the end of the campaign of his mother club whether it makes it all the way to the finals or not.
While he guided the Tropang 5G to the semis by twice beating top seed NLEX in the quarterfinals, the 7-foot-3 Bol unfortunately went down with a full tear on his Achilles tendon in Game 2 of the semifinals series against Meralco.
The former NBA player never made it back to the active roster, replaced by McCullough after another prospective replacement, Malick Diouf, was unable to play since his eligibility papers weren't processed in time.
Also suffering the same fate was Meralco's Marvin Jones, who played with the Bolts all the way to Game 3 of the semis before being replaced by Gardner following the team's 77-75 loss in the same game.
Bol, 26, could have been the favorite to win the award as he leads the conference in scoring with an average of 35.88 points to go with 13.7 rebounds, 3.9 block shots. His 55.2 statistical points in 16 games was also the best, only for his first ever international foray cut short by the Achilles tendon injury.
Brownlee, a three-time winner of the Best Import award, ranks second behind Bol with 50.5sps in 19 games, followed by McCullough with 49.3sps but only played for three games, Johnson with 47.2sps in 18 games, and Gardner with 44.7sps also in three games.
RJ Abarrientos is BPC favorite
The race for the Best Player of the Conference is tight among Robert Bolick, June Mar Fajardo, and RJ Abarrientos, with the Ginebra sophomore becoming the prohibitive favorite after Bolick and Fajardo missed out on a semifinals stint.
Bolick still leads the race with 38.9sps in 14 games with top seed NLEX, while Fajardo is next at 38.6sps in 13 games with San Miguel.
But Abarrientos has since taken over the limelight especially in Ginebra’s semifinals series against Rain or Shine where he scored back-to-back 30-plus points in Game 5 (31) and Game 6 (30) – the first Ginebra player to do so in a decade since Mark Caguioa had 30 and 32 against San Miguel in Games 1 and 2 of the 2006-07 Philippine Cup finals.
Ricci Rivero of Phoenix came in at No. 4 with 33.6sps and Jerrick Ahanmisi fifth wth 32.8sps while still with Terrafirma.
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