(Editor's note: Advanced numbers are courtesy of 'Stats by Ryan' on DribbleMedia.com — a collection of advanced stats for the PBA that uses up-to-date totals and formulas from both NBA.com/Stats and Basketball Reference, as well as other independent hoops websites.)
IT might be a little hard to fathom now, but Phoenix actually already had a firm grasp on the blueprint for success last season.
During the PBA’s lone conference in 2020, the Fuel Masters relied on three central figures to power a pleasantly surprising campaign: a stellar scorer and playmaker who could create offense out of thin air (Matthew Wright), a big man who could shoot on all three levels (Jason Perkins), and a do-it-all forward who could score, pass, and reasonably defend at least four positions in the local setting (Calvin Abueva).
The trio were surrounded by capable role players and were mentored by newly-minted head coach Topex Robinson, who steered a top-two Phoenix offense that shot and made threes at a top-three rate into the semifinals. While they eventually fell short of securing the franchise’s first-ever finals appearance, there was a lot of optimism for the future; some improvements on the margins aside, that core had the makings of a future title contender that just needed some time to grow together.
Phoenix, though, decided to go another route in the offseason. When the team traded Abueva for Chris Banchero before acquiring Vic Manuel in a separate trade, the idea was to raise the floor on offense while spreading the responsibility around; by adding another guard whom Wright could play off of, and a big man adept at scoring around the basket, the Fuel Masters were, on paper, a tad more potent and unpredictable.
It didn’t exactly pan out, and Phoenix’s offense dropped precipitously. After churning out an offensive rating of 106.8 in 2020, the team only scored 95.5 points per 100 possessions in the 2021 Philippine Cup, a figure that ranked ninth. The Fuel Masters also cooled down from deep, where 46.8 percent of their offense (second-highest) came from in 2020; they shot six less threes last conference and hit just 30.9 percent of them, which ranked seventh and hovered just slightly above league average.
Part of their struggles might have been amplified by health issues to Manuel, who dealt with leg and groin injuries, and Banchero, who started the conference sidelined by a nagging calf injury.
“Nothing went wrong per se,” Wright explained. “Other teams got better, and we had some unfortunate injuries early on with Vic and Banchero missing time early so we didn’t have a chance to really jell and learn how to play with a new team. I didn’t shoot well enough to keep us in games that would usually be winnable. But it’s a learning experience and we’ve gotten better.”
Wright personified some of Phoenix’s struggles on offense. After elevating his game in a 2020 season that saw him score 21.1 points (third) on 44.6/39.4/80.3 shooting splits to go with 5.5 assists (second), the Fil-Canadian guard only managed to put up 15.1 points on a 33.3 percent clip. His true shooting percentage fell to 44.1 — a huge dip from the 59.3 TS% mark that ranked fourth among seven players who scored more than 19 a game last year.
“The bottom line was the shots weren’t falling at the usual clip. There’s no excuse for us to make, we just got to be better,” he remarked.
Even at full health, though, this team would have been hard-pressed to make stops — something that could have compensated for the shaky offense. With Abueva — a stout, versatile defender who ranked 12th in the league in Dribble Media’s defensive box plus-minus (DBPM) for the 2020 season — the Fuel Masters still brandished the fourth-worst defense; they were predictably worse last conference, where they ranked 10th on defense while posting bottom-four marks in steals (5.4, 10th) and blocks (3.3, eighth).
Manuel wasn’t really touted as an Abueva replacement, and for good reason: at this stage in their careers, ‘The Beast,' now with Magnolia, is a better player between the two. Manuel has rated out as a negative defender since the 2019 Commissioner’s Cup and did not provide the same level of secondary playmaking that Abueva (5.2 assists, fourth) did in 2020. He was also inefficient, scoring just 12.8 points on 48.9 TS% (below league average) despite posting the highest usage rate in the league.
“The Vic experiment wasn’t as effective as we hoped. But in all fairness, he wasn’t 100% either, so it just wasn’t meant to be,” Wright said.
Phoenix was quick to move on when presented the opportunity, trading away Manuel for forward Sean Anthony in a multi-player deal with NorthPort approved early this month.
An understated factor about that trade is that the ever-underrated forward might be able to help recreate the magic that made the Fuel Masters so successful in 2020. It’s not exactly something that current Phoenix personalities will address explicitly, but dealing for Anthony is, in a sense, an acknowledgement of the fact that veering away from last season’s formula was a bit of a miscalculation.
Anthony is no Abueva — he doesn’t have to be, and he’s uniquely good in his own right — but he approximates the latter’s impact. The 35-year-old forward is not the rebounder or scorer that Abueva is, but he’s versatile enough to play the three and the four, is an able passer, defends at a high level, and is generally a low usage guy that can slot in seamlessly in most schemes.
“Sean’s strength is he doesn’t need the ball to make an impact in the game so he can adapt well to any environment,” Wright briefly said.
Anthony dealt with a foot issue last conference that may have chipped away at his efficiency (10.6 points on 39.4/18.5/77.8 splits, 43.2 TS%), but the 2019 Defensive Player of the Year was still as solid as ever on the other end of the floor, ranking fifth in steals (1.5) and even posting the third-highest DBPM among all qualified players.
The last time that he looked close to 100 percent physically was in the 2019 Governors' Cup, where Anthony was nothing short of productive. He averaged 13.9 points on 41.6/33.3/69 splits (52.1 TS%), 6.2 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.3 steals (third among locals), and just 1.9 turnovers in 34 minutes a game, all while helping the eighth-seeded Batang Pier upset the top-ranked NLEX to reach the semifinals.
His passing and defensive numbers feel a little comparable to that of Abueva’s figures during his final season with Phoenix in 2020. Anthony assisted on almost as many field goals, played great defense, and allowed the best offensive options of their respective teams to get their offense going unimpeded:
ABUEVA, 2020 PHILIPPINE CUP
- 26.3 assist percentage, 9th among all players
- 2.5% steal rate, 14th
- 1.5 DBPM, 12th
- 22.5% usage rate, second in team
ANTHONY, 2019 GOVERNORS’ CUP
- 21.1 assist percentage, 13th among all players
- 3.4% steal rate, 3rd
- 2.0 DBPM, 11th
- 19.1% usage rate, tied for third among locals in team
There are always questions. Statistical comparisons aren't always accurate and fool-proof, and this partnership between Phoenix and their new acquisition could always end up being a bust later on. There's also the matter of health; Anthony isn't exactly the picture of fitness, missing half of NorthPort's 24 games over the last two conferences. (An offseason surgery he went through to remove bone spurs could fix all that.)
Right now, though, it seems Anthony fixes some of the ails that hounded Phoenix earlier this season. He's a significant upgrade on defense and fits like a glove within an altruistic Fuel Masters offense that has been a top-two passing team over the last two tournaments. More importantly, Anthony's presence also allows Wright and Perkins — the latter an absolute picture of stability (16.3 points on 55.4 TS%, 8.1 rebounds) last conference and even before that — to take their rightful spots as the undisputed focal points of the action.
Phoenix probably didn't anticipate last conference's struggles, but it's encouraging how the team immediately moved to rectify all that by simulating the mix that made the team a dark-horse title contender. Theoretically, they're more equipped to regain that status; it's just a matter of determining whether or not the blueprint still works.
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