CHRIS Banchero is now part of PBA history as the first player to ever score a four-point basket.
Scoring beyond the 27-foo ac from the right wing, the Meralco guard was the first to convert his four-point shot after teammates Chris Newsome and CJ Cansino earlier missed from the same distance.
It’s a moment that everyone was waiting for, and regardless if this innovation becomes the norm or gets scrapped, Banchero’s name having this distinction of being the first will stand the test of time.
READ Banchero on four-point shot: 'It's fun playing with it'
His will be placed alongside that of Joy Dionisio, the first player to score a basket when the league was inaugurated in 1975. His layup for Concepcion Carrier in the maiden game against Mariwasa-Noritake got the ball rolling for Asia’s first play-for-pay league.
But do you know who made the first ever three-point shot in the PBA?
Believe it or not, it’s the living legend Robert Jaworski.
ON THIS DAY: Joy Dionisio scores first PBA basket
Introduced in 1980, the three-point line came to the league a season after the NBA adopted the rule. But it came in a semi-circle, meaning that back then, there was no such thing as a corner three.
And how fitting was it that the first two teams to get a crack at the trifecta were two of the league’s proudest franchises back then as Toyota and Crispa played the opening game of the season inside a jampacked Araneta Coliseum on March 16, 1980.
Jaworski, the 1978 PBA MVP, showcased his prowess as he proved to be lethal from the 22-foot line. He drained three treys, the last of which gave the Tamaraws a crucial 107-102 lead in the endgame.
Finishing with 22 points, Jaworski led Toyota to a 112-107 win over Crispa to kick off their Open Conference campaign.
LOOK:
“We were hitting pretty good from the outside,” remarked Toyota coach Fortunato Acuna in a game dispatch from Bulletin Today’s Bert Eljera, showing that it did not take long for the players back then to adjust to the three-point line.
Curiously, Dionisio was also playing in the aforementioned game for the Redmanizers.
The PBA would turn its three-point line to the arc that we all know now in the 1981 season.
Over four decades later, Banchero follows the footsteps of Dionisio and Jaworski as a PBA pioneer.
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