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As the PBA Season 50 Philippine Cup enters its semifinal phase, San Miguel’s June Mar Fajardo again asserted his dominance by emerging as No. 1 candidate for Best Player of the Conference.
Fajardo amassed 45.4 statistical points (SPs) in 12 games which saw him submitting numbers of 17.4 points, a league-leading 15.3 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 1.1 blocked shots.
He anchored the Beermen’s 10-game winning streak after a slow 0-2 start and punched in 26 points, 23 rebounds, and six assists in a 101-94 quarterfinal win over NLEX that formalized their semifinal entry.
Who's behind June Mar?
The league’s first and only nine-time MVP was way ahead of second-running Calvin Abueva of Titan Ultra, who totaled 41.2 SPs as the All-Filipino Cup’s leading scorer with a 23.6-point average alongside 11.9 rebounds.
The Converge duo of rookie Juan Gomez de Liano (19.0ppg, 7.2rpg, and 6.7apg) and Justine Baltazar (14.8ppg and 14.2rpg) ranked third and fourth, respectively at 37.23 and 37.15 SPs, followed by Magnolia’s Zavier Lucero (17.1ppg, 10.1rpg, and 2.0bpg) with 33.8 SPs.
Curiously, all four players crowding out Fajardo will no longer see action in the best-of-seven semis following the ouster of the FiberXers and Hotshots in the playoffs, while the Giant Risers fell short of making the quarterfinals.
Fajardo's San Miguel teammate CJ Perez is actually also in the running, along with TNT's Calvin Oftana, and Meralco sophomore CJ Cansino.
Perez (18.7ppg and 1.8spg) is at seventh spot with 32.92sps, closely followed by Oftana (17.6ppg and 5.7rpg) with 32.91sps, while Cansino (18.4ppg and 5.4rpg) occupies the 10th spot at 31.2sps.
Big men Joshua Munzon (21.6ppg and 4.9apg) of Titan is at no 6 and Justin Arana (15.7ppg and 9.8rpg) of Converge is at no.9, although their respective teams are already out of the running.
Munzon, the Most Improver Player last season, carries a 33.6sps and Arana 32.6sps
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