MATTHEW Wright said it will be an honor to win the Best Player of the Conference award this year in the PBA bubble, but admitted a lot of players are also deserving to take home the individual award.
The Phoenix Super LPG star had an outstanding bubble conference in which he was at one point leading in the statistical points standings, which later became relevant as the PBA decided to give out a Best Player of the Conference award.
“It will be great. It will be huge,” said Wright when asked about the possibility of winning the award during the recent Games and Amusements Board (GAB) Sports Summit. “My mom will be the happiest. She’s wanted this for me since I was nine years old playing in Filipino leagues back home in Canada.”
But Wright also recognizes that winning the award will be a tough one since several players are also in the running for the award. One of the strong candidates for the award is TNT's Bobby Ray Parks, who overtook Wright in the statistical points race.
The 29-year-old Wright said the work continues for him regardless of whether he wins the award or not.
“It will be a great moment for me but the grind continues the next day. I’m going to still go about it the exact same way. There are a lot of deserving guys in my position as well. Whoever gets it deserves it,” Wright said.
With Wright leading the way, the Fuel Masters had perhaps their best season in franchise history, finishing second in the elimination round and reaching the semifinals where they lost to TNT in a series that went the distance.
Wright knows that winning the BPC is a huge accomplishment for any PBA player, but he said he doesn’t play to win individual awards. The Phoenix star also credited his teammates for putting him in position for the plum.
“I would love to win the award. Obviously, it’s one of the individual awards that I feel that all the great PBA players in the past have won," he said. "I don’t play the game for individual awards, I just play strictly to win. But when you put in the work, you have some good karma behind you, you have a great coaching staff and you have great players, sometimes those things can come up.”
“I’m lucky enough to be one of the leaders this conference. It wasn’t because of my skills. It’s because of my teammates putting me in positions to succeed and putting me in position where I was most advantageous for my team,” Wright added.
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