THE PBA board has declared a moratorium on trades involving Northport players pending the sale of the franchise to Pureblends Corp.
This explains why guard Jio Jalalon’s supposed trade to Blackwater for veteran big man Justin Chua has been put in the backburner at the moment.
Commissioner Willie Marcial said the moratorium was announced the moment NorthPort officially notified the league about Pureblend’s intention to buy the franchise during a board meeting held last Sept. 3 prior to its annual planning session in Las Vegas.
READ Pureblends hits the ground running, eyes two multi-player trades
Trade papers involving the Jalalon trade were submitted to the PBA office just last week.
But Marcial said the trade of another Northport player, Evan Nelle, to Phoenix was already approved by the league before the Batang Pier formally informed the PBA about the sale of the team during its board meeting.
The Fuel Masters acquired Nelle from Northport in a three-team trade that had the Batang Pier ending up with Jeo Ambohot from Converge and the FiberXers landing the signing rights of prodigal big man Larry Muyang from Phoenix.
A similar moratorium was declared by the board when Terrafirma put its franchise up for sale, initially to Starhorse Shipping Lines and later, to the Zamboanga Valientes.
Shortly after the sale was aborted, the trade freeze was lifted as the Dyip managed to ship Javi Gomez de Liano to Magnolia for shooting guard Jerrick Ahanmisi.
Blackwater governor Siliman Sy confirmed the moratorium, adding the trade would be revisited once Pureblends formally acquires the Northport franchise.
But time is running out on Northport as Jalalon’s contract is only up until Sept. 30, by which time he becomes a free agent.
The veteran guard out of Arellano is actually just a conference short of becoming an automatic unrestricted free agent.
There are talks though, that if ever Jalalon ended up at Blackwater, his stay with the team will only be shortlived as he’s eventually be going to the TNT Tropang 5G.
There were in fact unconfirmed reports that he was spotted in TNMT practice,
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