UNLESS the Macau Giant Pandas pull off a miracle, the PBA Governors’ Cup will be the last time the nine-year old franchise will be invited to be a guest team in Asia’s first ever play-for-pay league.
While having a guest ballclub changes the dynamics of competition, SPIN.ph learned from league sources that PBA officials aren’t exactly pleased with the performance of the Giant Pandas in their two conferences in Season 50.
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This includes the current third conference where the Macau-based team sports an 0-4 record in Group A.
With the exception of its close loss to defending champion TNT, 106-103, Macau lost its first three outings by an average of 26 points, the worst of it coming at the hands of NLEX in its debut game, 114-75.
As one league official say, ‘medyo masakit sa mata.’
To be fair, Macau – then carrying the Black Knights moniker – didn’t win its first game in its first PBA foray during the Commissioner’s Cup until its eighth outing, before finishing its campaign by winning three of their last five matches, including a 105-98 stunner of playoff-bound Phoenix.
Former NBA player Tony Mitchell reinforced the team.
That winning stretch at the tail-end of the mid-season conference somehow helped the team convince the league that it deserves an encore in the third and final conference.
“They also promised that they’ll be forming a roster that is more competitive,” said a source.
Unfortunately, the struggles continue for the team which adopted the moniker Giant Pandas and tapped the services of Temple University product De’Vondre Perry.
While it brought in new faces including familiar Asian campaigner Kobey Lam, the Giant Pandas missed out on the services of Phoenix Shackelford and hotshot Jenning Leung.
But sources said Leung could be back in the team by August or at the latest, during the second round of the eliminations.
It didn’t help any that the Giant Pandas came in as a guest team following the previous stints of Bay Area Dragons and Hong Kong Eastern. Both ballclubs made the playoffs, with the Dragons – coached by former Australia men’s basketball mentor Brian Goorjian – stretching Barangay Ginebra to a deciding Game 7 during the 2023 Commissioner’s Cup finals which the Kings won.
“Mabibigat din kasi yung sinundan nila,” added the source.
If there’s any silver lining to its PBA campaign, the Giant Pands paraded a number of talented players including Shackelford, Leung, Ramon Cao, and the shifty Damian ChongQui. - Gerry Ramos
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