AS they continue on their quest to reclaim the PBA Philippine Cup crown, June Mar Fajardo and San Miguel teammate CJ Perez find themselves, too, on a collision for the Best Player of the Conference plum.
The two Beermen emerged as the top contenders for the highest individual award of the conference based on official statistics released by the league prior to the start of the all-Filipino Cup finals on Sunday.
Fajardo is currently on top of the BPC race with 39.6 statistical points (SPs) through the 19 games he played so far, and emerged as the tournament’s top rebounder with an average of 13.9 aside from submitting 16.0 points, 3.2 assists, and 1.1 blocks.
Perez comes in at No. 3 with 35.4 SPs built on all-around numbers of 20.7 points, 4.3 rebounds, 4.2 assists, and 1.5 steals.
The BPC race has become a two-way fight, as SMB made it to the season-ending finals opposite TNT and will be gunning to regain the title it lost to Meralco last year.
The rest of the field for BPC
Robert Bolick of NLEX, Jason Perkins of Phoenix, and Zavier Lucero of Magnolia completed the top five candidates, but their respective teams' failure to advance to the semifinals obviously jeopardized their bid for the coveted award.
Bolick is running second behind Fajardo at 35.4 SPs, as he leads the league in assists with 6.6 per outing, while collecting 19.2 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 1.2 steals per game.
This marked Perkins’ strongest bid for the plum behind his league-leading 23.2 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 3.4 assists that netted him 36.3 SPs.
The same thing with Lucero, who's in contention for the award in just his sophomore season where he normed 18.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists, and 1.5 blocks – tops in the tournament – for 35.2 SPs and fifth-place.
Of the five, only Fajardo and Perez have won BPC in the past.
The 35-year-old Fajardo previously bagged the award 11 times, including in the season-opening Governors’ Cup.
Perez was named winner of the award during the Season 48 Commissioner’s Cup, besting big man Christian Standhardinger who was with Barangay Ginebra back then.
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