ONCE the sale of NorthPort's PBA franchise is declared official, Pureblends Inc. won't need to look far for quality players to form a competitive team.
Unlike expansion teams and other rookie franchise owners in the past which had to build title contenders from the ground up, Pureblends will inherit enough assets from the former Batang Pier franchise to start its PBA campaign on a high note.
A simple due diligence of the NorthPort team will reveal a number of qualiity players that are currently still under contract, players with expired contracts that are still worth keeping, and the projected No. 4 pick and two second-round picks in Sunday's rookie draft.
A TIMELINE of NorthPort's 13 title-less seasons in the PBA
There, too, are two players - Dave Ildefonso and Greg Slaughter - who are playing in other leagues but whose signing rights still belong to the franchise.
"Yes, for sure," said Rain or Shine coach Yeng Guiao when asked if Pureblends has enough materials to be competitive in its maiden campaign.
Guiao can be forgiven if he is a little envious of the soon-to-be-named Pureblends coach. He had far lesser materials and got fewer concessions when he started building champion teams at RFM Swift, Red Bull, and Rain or Shine.
"Northport (Pureblends) can transform into a very competitive team with its present core and some creative tweaks to its line-up," said the veteran coach. "It was not too long ago when they got all the way to the semifinals."
On Wednesday, sources revealed that Pureblends has started the process of building a team for its debut season by working on two trades to get Jeo Ambohot from Converge and another big man, Justin Chua, from Blackwater.
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Ironically, the new team would've found no need for either Ambohot or Chua had the previous management not traded 6-foot-6 JM Calma to San Miguel last season for rarely used guard Avan Nava and SMB's second-round pick this season.
But even without Calma and William Navarro, who NorthPort traded to Magnolia, Pureblends is still left with quality players Calvin Abueva, Joshua Munzon, Cade Flores, Evan Nelle, Fran Yu, and James Kwekuetye.
Among the players with expired contracts, worth bringing back are Jerrick Balanza, Sidney Onwubere and unrestricted free agent Jio Jalalon.
Technically, the franchise also owns the signing rights of Arvin Tolentino. But the former NorthPort star was one of the players handed three-year bans under a new rule imposed by the league board recently after his move to the Seoul SK Knights.
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The situations of Ildefonso and Slaughter are a little more complicated. Ildefonso got entangled in messy negotiations with NorthPort management after being picked 5th overall in the last rookie draft while Slaughter left for Japan after a similar contract row with team officials.
But with a fresh start under new owners, Ildefonso and Slaughter's issues may be easier to untangle.
"I don't know [Slaughter] that well and I also have no knowledge of the circumstances that left him estranged from his team," said Guiao. "But value-wise to the team, yes I will gamble on him."
Gauge for new team owners
And how well - or poorly - the new management handles these two festering issues may very well serve as a gauge on how serious it is to compete in the PBA.
"The future of any franchise is really about the seriousness of the owners to compete and up to what extent they are willing to sacrifice," said Guiao.
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