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    COLUMN: Hoping Kume can be as tough on unfair trades as he is on Bay Area

    Hoping against hope
    Jan 5, 2023
    Bay Area Dragons
    PHOTO: Jerome Ascano
    spin zone

    CHICAGO - Once again, the office of the PBA commissioner has shown its amazing ability to repel logic.

    Flexing the muscle he is often reluctant to use and push back on lopsided trades that favor the rich teams from SMC and the MVP Group, Kume Willie Marcial went down hard and heavily fined two Bay Area Dragon players earlier today.

    Their crimes?

    Excessive honesty.

    READ: Bay Area players hit with fine for ref rant

    For his posts on social media suggesting the referees "were making a difference" while pointing out a 38-10 free throw shooting anomaly, Myles Powell was fined P100,000.

    Hayden Blankley, on the other hand, ended up P75,000 poorer for begging for a "fair game" while using the word "cooked" to ventilate his frustrations.

    The disparity of the fines had no rhyme nor reason.

    Why was Powell's post P25,000 more expensive when Blankley's comments were more damning in accusing that Game 3 was rigged?

    Welcome to the wonderful world of the PBA, Bay Area Dragons.

    FREE SPEECH IS AN OXYMORON.

    People sometimes pay for the consequences of their words in the workplace. But it must be noted here that Powell and Blankley said what they said in the heat of the moment that followed a highly emotionally-charged game,

    There is no argument that the PBA has the right to police its ranks against comments detrimental to the league but room for discretion must also be accommodated to cool the temperature.

    Was there any harm in issuing a stern warning or perhaps imposing a lesser fine instead?

    It's called goodwill, folks, especially since Bay Area is a guest team.

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      But Marcial decided to take the apocalyptic route, which makes me wonder if the Kume's intent here was purely disciplinary in nature and not to crack the whip to silence the mob.

      By the way, while cracking the whip on a foreign guest team, the Commissioner's Office announced it has approved a deal that saw San Miguel trade a player it rarely found any use for over the past four years and in fact didn't even bother to re-sign - or his signing rights, anyway - plus a second-round pick that can't be used until the 2025 draft for a player that the Batang Pier had to give up promising Jerrick Balanza for to acquire.

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      Yes, that's how out of whack that Paul Zamar/future pick for Allyn Bulanadi trade sounds. But not to the PBA office, apparently.

      Brian Goorjian

      To be clear, Bay Area did not lose Game 3 per se because it shot 28 less free throws and got called for 16 more fouls. Ginebra made a run and the Dragons went on a really dry fourth quarter spell where they couldn't make a bucket.

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      However, the uneven officiating stifled Bay Area's momentum. And in a sport where rhythm and flow are essential, the whistle crisis helped lead to the Dragons' demise.

      Bay Area's beef isn't just limited on the number of team fouls, it touches on how the fouls were called.

      Gin King Justin Brownlee, for instance, went to the free throw line 20 times while Bay Area's Andrew Nicholson attempted only two free throws and was fouled just five times even though he was constantly being physically doubled-teamed.

      INSTEAD OF WRAPPING DUCT TAPE ON THE DRAGONS' LIPS, KUME MARCIAL SHOULD FOCUS MORE ON ADDRESSING THE OFFICIATING IMBALANCE.

      Coach Tim Cone once told me in a telephone conversation that he "won't apologize" for the friendly whistles Ginebra often gets because he was on "the receiving end of it" for many years while coaching Alaska and Purefoods.

      No apologies required here, either.

      But I bet coach Tim must feel so gratified to be finally on the other side.

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      PHOTO: Jerome Ascano
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