TO say that Terrafirma is the busiest team in the trading floor this season is quite an understatement.
Here's a TIMELINE.
Over a span of four months beginning in July, the Dyip made five transactions - six of you count the firing of its coach - and somehow was able to raze a team that offered a semblance of hope for the perennial league minnows.
Just one month after reaching the playoffs for only the second time in its 10-year history in the Season 48 Philippine Cup, the Dyip lost Javi Gomez de Liano to the Korean pro league in a major blow to its young, promising core.
READ Javi GdL bids Terrafirma goodbye
It turned out to be a sign of things to come.
Just a little over a month later, Terrafirma was back on the trading floor, giving away Rookie of the Year Stephen Holt, first-round pick Isaac Go and the No. 3 pick in the Season 49 draft in a trade with Ginebra for veterans Stanley Pringle and Christian Standhardinger.
That No. 3 pick was used by Ginebra to draft the sensational RJ Abarrientos.
READ Ginebra trades Standhardinger, Pringle to Terrafirma for Holt, Go
That megatrade trade left the Dyip so short of players that on August 28, the team had to trade its Season 50 second-round pick to Ginebra to get second-rounders Hamad Hanapi and Paolo Hernandez and its Season 51 second-round pick to NorthPort for Brent Paraiso just to fill up holes in its lineup.
READ Terrafirma signs two rookies acquired in trade with Ginebra
READ NorthPort ships Brent Paraiso to Terrafirma for second-round pick
That hastily rejigged Dyip team struggled as expected, barely avoiding a shutout with a 1-9 (win-loss) record in the season-opening Governors' Cup, which led to the firing of longtime coach Johnedel Cardel.
Cardel, by the way, was the same coach who against all odds was able to lead the Dyip to the Philippine Cup playoffs just the conference before.
READ Cardel on sudden Terrafirma exit: ‘Naging good soldier ako’
Even before interim coach Raymond Tiongco could coach his first PBA game, the Dyip again let go of a prized asset on November 12, trading the signing rights to former Gilas Pilipinas gunner Jordan Heading to Converge for Arjun Melecio, Keith Zaldivar and a future first-round pick.
The trade, to be fair, wasn't one-sided, but PBA insiders are in agreement that any team that fails to sign or lets go of a player of Heading's caliber ends up the loser.
COLUMN: Heading trade accelerates growth of young Converge team
Less than two weeks since that Heading deal, Terrafirma was at it again as a deal was announced sending vastly improved Juami Tiongson and Andreas Cahilig to SMB for controversial guard Terrence Romeo and fellow veteran Vic Manuel.
The deal meant the starting five of that Terrafirma team that reached a high in the Philippine Cup playoffs last season - namely Holt, Tiongson, Go, Cahilig and Gomez de Liano - are all gone.
READ SMB trades Terrence Romeo, Vic Manuel to Dyip for Juami Tiongson, Cahilig
From here, the nucleus of the razed Terrafirma team is now made up of Standhardinger, who is 35; Pringle and Manuel, both 37; Aldrech Ramos, who is 36; and Romeo, who is 33.
But after all these transactions, the Dyip still have a couple of promising assets in 6-foot-9 Kemark Carino and rookie guard Mark Nonoy, the No. 10 pick of the last draft who finally signed with Terrafirma at the end of the MPBL campaign.
So are the Dyip done trading?
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