MO Tautuaa is taking the recent trade rumors surrounding him in stride, stressing his focus is to simply be a better player whichever team he plays for starting in the PBA Governors’ Cup.
The highly touted Tropang TNT rookie big man has been rumored to be on the trading block after performing below expectations in his first two conferences in the pro league.
“I don’t care,” Tautuaa said. “At the end of the day, I’m going to work hard no matter what.”
“I like where I’m at,” the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 Draft was quick to add. “I love playing for the team. I love my teammates. I love everything about it. But I understand that at the end of the day, this is a business.”
Tautuaa, who averaged 7.9 points on 53.2-percent shooting, 3.4 rebounds, and .8 assist, against 1.3 turnovers in 15.4 minutes in the midseason tournament, said no one has yet talked to him about getting traded.
“I don’t know how it works, maybe it is secrets, maybe it’s not,” he said. “There’s nothing I can really say about it. But I know that I can just work for myself, work hard. It’s all in God’s hands after that.”
[See Mo Tautuaa on trading block, says source]
Tautuaa said he needs to improve on making better decisions on the court, where the 6-foot-7 slotman hardly saw playing time behind import David Simon.
“My decision-making was kind of suspect at times,” the 27-year-old cager admitted. “But then it was difficult because in the second conference, I didn’t play. I played about five minutes because we had our import, so it’s hard to tell what I need to change because I didn’t play much.”
“What I felt like I also need to do is become better at shooting and defending and that’s all about heart and working,” he added.
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