SEAN Chambers averaged 30.5 points over an accomplished 12-year PBA career to finish as the third-best scorer all-time among imports with 8,225 points behind only Norman Black and Bobby Parks.
But the resident Alaska import insisted he found it tough to navigate around the defense of one star-studded team.
Asked by a fan on SPIN Zoom In which team gave him a tough time to score, Chambers readily answered Purefoods as he rattled off the team’s best defenders.
Sean Chambers on toughest defenders
“I had a hard time scoring against Jerry Codiñera,” he bared. “They would always put him on me. And they also had Alvin (Patrimonio) sometimes. And Bong Ravena. Bong was pretty tall as well, so they had some long, athletic bigs that can give me some fits sometimes.”
“And Jerry was just tough to score on sometimes because he was so thick and wide and he was agile,” he added of the “Defense Minister.” “He was one of the most probably smartest defenders that I’ve ever played against.”
“Manny Victorino, because Manny was also about 6’4”, 6’5” and super athletic,” he continued of the 1984 Most Improved Player, who also played for Ginebra in 1993, a year before suiting up for Purefoods.
Asked if Barangay Ginebra also gave him a hard time, Chambers nodded – but only during his first few years in the league.
“My early years, I had a hard time against Chito Loyzaga, because he would defend you like this – he would bear hug you and nobody would call that a foul,” Chambers said with a smile of the eight-time All-Defensive Team member and one of the PBA’s 40 Greatest Players. “I used to get so frustrated with Chito.”
“Dante Gonzalgo was really good. And Philip Cezar,” he added of two other Ginebra greats. “So they had all the bigs and they had a lot of fouls to give.”
Despite Ginebra’s rugged play, Chambers would always keep his emotions in check.
“Although I played with such a fiery spirit, I never got out of my zone,” Chambers said. “So Ginebra would try to foul you and get you out of your zone. I never got out of my zone. Although I would get pumped up and get excited about the game, but I always stayed here when it came to the physicality.”
“So that was one of the things I know a lot of Filipinos appreciated that I never lost my cool and it was hard not to do against Ginebra,” he added.
A prime example was the time when Chambers stayed calm after drawing a hard foul from the “Living Legend.”
“One of the best compliments I ever got was from Jaworski,” Chambers said. “He took a pretty hard foul on me…and when I got up, he was like, ‘Okay, I respect your game.’ When Jaworski respects your game, you made it.”
Later on his career, Chambers would run circles around the Ginebra defense – evidenced by Alaska completing its 1996 grand slam at the expense of Ginebra in the Governors’ Cup finals, winning in just five games.
“When we’d won 3-0, we were pretty dominating and (Jaworski) knew, he was like, ‘You’re just too good right now.’ He knew I was on the top of my game in the PBA.”
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