[Fourth of a series]
Picking a 'best' list is always a tricky proposition. One's choices do not always conform with what others think. And in a country like ours where basketball is what people eat for breakfast, we expect a vigorus debate as we come out with our list of 10 players who we thought ought to be added to the 40 Greatest PBA Players earlier chosen.
Our list is a selection that we will release, one player at a time, while the PBA itself is trying to form its own list of 10 to be selected by a committee formed by PBA commissioner Willie Marcial to complete the 50 Greatest in time for the league's 50th Anniversary celebration next month.
The selection committee is composed of league greats, former commissioners and select mediamen from different outlets.
We assure our readers that our selection is not influenced by what is deliberated closed doors by the committee whose members, including one from SPIN.ph, have vowed not to divulge any part of the discussion or voting procedure.
Here's the fourth installment of our series on 50 Greatest.
1. ARNULFO 'ARNIE' TUADLES
Read Tuadles piece HERE
2. NELSON ASAYTONO
Read Asaytono piece HERE
3. JUNE MAR FAJARDO
Read Fajardo piece HERE
4. RENE 'BONG' HAWKINS
Read Hawkins piece HERE
5. LEWIS ALFRED 'LA' TENORIO
We understand that the selection committee tasked to pick the 10 players to be added to the PBA's 50 Greatest Players list will unlikely go for another active player outside of June Mar Fajardo and Scottie Thompson, who are both expected to be seeded as league MVPs.
But we hope they make an exception in LA Tenorio.
Plain and simple, Tenorio deserves a spot on that PBA 50 Greatest Players list regardless of how you look at it, or whatever barometer you use. The only tiny detail that disqualifies him is that he's still active, as if it's his fault that he's so tough and so disciplined that he once played in an all-time record 744 successive games, and continues to play into his forties - notwithstanding a cancer scare and several injuries.
Tenorio is in fact more deserving than some of the players added to the 40 Greatest List in haphazardly fashion in 2015 that prompted no less than legend Robert Jaworski, who was a part of the selection committee then, to ask that the selection process of future 'Greatest' lists be institutionalized.
READ: Jaworski calls on PBA to institutionalize 'Greatest' selection process
Since the process was never institutionalized in the first place, and even if it was, this is one time when making an exception won't be wrong.
Besides, LA is already at a stage where he's rounding out a legendary career adorned by 10 PBA championships, four PBA Finals MVP awards, one Best Player of the Conference honor, 10 All-Star selections, a Most Improved Player plum and a Comeback Player award in 18 memorable seasons.
Overwhelmed yet? Well, we haven't even started talking about his accomplishments with Gilas Pilipinas, where he played a big part in the national team's resurgence with his title-winning heroics in the 2012 Jones Cup in Taipei and, a year later, the runner-up finish to Iran at the Fiba Asia Cup that got Gilas back to the World Cup.
Agree, Tenorio will be a first-ballot nominee to the PBA 60 Greatest Players list 10 years down the road. But we can cut to the chase and hand him the honor now.
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