CHICAGO - Whatever issues he had with his former PBA team, Mikey Williams is ready to move on and let bygones be bygones.
Unfortunately, TNT doesn't seem as eager or willing to reciprocate the star guard's reconciliatory feelings.
According to sources with knowledge of the situation, Williams attempted to speak to the big boss himself, Manny V. Pangilinan, but he was told that MVP was in Hong Kong.
SOURCES SAY: Converge willing to trade big man for Mikey rights?
A similar attempt to sit down with Chot Reyes was also rebuked and Williams was supposedly informed that the TNT head coach was focused on the Tropang Giga's playoffs run which has now reached the Commissioner's Cup Finals.
With those two big doors closed, and with the player's camp showing zero desire to talk to TNT team manager Jojo Lastimosa, I am told, Mikey went back to Los Angeles last March 2.
CALL ME, MAYBE?
Patiently, and with an open mind, the two-time PBA champion and two-time Finals MVP, stayed in Manila for nearly a month after his stint with the Strong Group Athletics (SGA) in the 34th Dubai Invitational Tournament ended last February 3.
It has been an exhausting 23 months since the all-purpose guard left the team after invoking a renegotiation clause in his contract that allegedly paid him well over $20,000 a month including generous bonuses.
Nearly two years, one termination letter, and plenty of angst later, the impasse lingers and TNT is conveniently sitting on Williams' rights.
Converge, the source said, waged a relentless pursuit of the sharpshooting Williams and was prepared to give the two assets the telephone giant sought.
However, the deal eventually fizzled and this past weekend the FiberXers announced the signing of another familiar name and a blast from the past - Jackson Corpuz.
STIFF ARM.
If there's a will, there's a way, an old saying goes. But as far as a TNT-Mikey Williams reunion is concerned, it's a "no way."
You have to wonder if the Tropang Giga are blackballing Mikey or they're simply attaching a steep price for the Fil-Am's rights that making a deal is unrealistic.
Look, it isn't like TNT is better off without the No. 4 overall pick of the 2020 Rookie Draft. So the continued snub is perplexing from a purely basketball standpoint.
Through two Finals games versus Ginebra so far, TNT has shot the ball just 59-of-151 from the field overall (37.7 percent) including 20-of-67 from three (29.8 percent).
Hello?
Instead of actually parading a nuclear line-up with Rondae Hollis-Jfferson, Calvin Oftana and Roger Pogoy, this quasi Dream Team is reduced to our imagination and is prone to misinterpretation.
Grudges can be a bitch. And so is pride.
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