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THE INAUGURAL BALLER AWARDS: THE BEST PBA POINT GUARD OF 2013
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In lieu of a PBA year-ender, I felt it would be better to go position-by-position and look at the best PBAers of 2013. These are the guys who did really well in the pro circuit. Perhaps they led their teams to conference titles. Perhaps they led the league in a certain statistical category. Perhaps they were part of Gilas Pilipinas and helped the team make history. Perhaps they did all of those things.
In this first post, we will look at the top PBA point guards of the year and award the Baller Award to the Best PBA Point Guard of 2013.
The Nominees:
Jimmy Alapag – Talk N Text and Gilas Pilipinas
Alapag had a couple of great accomplishments this past year. He helped the Tropang Texters annex the Philippine Cup early in 2013 and, more importantly, played a huge role pushing Gilas Pilipinas to the 2013 FIBA Asia Finals and, consequently, into the 2014 FIBA World Cup. Remember his two huge triples late in fourth quarter against the Koreans? Shots heard around the continent, baby.
Mark Barroca – San Mig Coffee
Petron Blaze was the favorite in the 2013 PBA Govs’ Cup Finals, especially since they had superior size and they had a whirlwind import in Elijah Millsap. The Mixers, however, delivered the biggest blows in the seven-game finale series, and some of those came from the diminutive Barroca. The former FEU Tamaraw and Gilas playmaker has grown in his two seasons in the pros, and it really showed in that series, especially his 22-point, 10-assist performance in Game Five that really seemed to turn the tide in favor of the Mixers.
JV Casio – Alaska Aces
Casio can be given a ton of credit for helping the Alaska Aces win their first PBA title post-Tim Cone. Like Barroca, Casio is another Gilas program product, and he really showed the maturity in his game in last season’s second conference. He averaged around 14 points and 7 assists as Alaska swept Ginebra in their best-of-5 Finals series, with the former Green Archer torching the Kings with 18 points and 9 assists in the title-clincher.
Jayson Castro – Talk N Text and Gilas Pilipinas
There are maybe too many good things we can say about Jayson Castro. Like Alapag, Castro was vital in TNT’s Philippine Cup-clinching campaign in early 2013. He won his first-ever Best Player of the Conference plum in there, and that paved the way for his historic inclusion in the Gilas Pilipinas squad, which, as we now know, advanced to the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Spain. Castro, of course, was the Pinoys’ secret weapon in that tournament. He lived up to his nickname, “The Blur,” and left much of the competition in the dust. In the end, he was named a member of the 2013 FIBA Asia First Team along with Iran’s Hamed Haddadi and Oshin Sahakian, Taiwan’s Lin Chih-Chieh, and Korea’s Kim Min-Goo. Not bad company, eh?
LA Tenorio – Barangay Ginebra Kings and Gilas Pilipinas
Tenorio may not have won any PBA title this year, but he did help Gilas place second in the 2013 FIBA Asia Championships held here in Manila. Oftentimes, he was the best point guard in the country, as evidenced by the fact he was among the three PBA Season MVP candidates this year. He lost out to Petron’s Arwind Santos, but he left us all wanting more of his superb playmaking and clutch shooting. And with “The Lieutenant” at the helm, the new-look Ginebra Kings have actually become the best team in the PBA as of this writing.
And the BALLER goes to…
JAYSON CASTRO
All the guys nominated are awesome (duh!), but Castro was just a cut above everyone else. He was able to achieve so many things this year, and he can lay claim to the accolade of being the best point guard in the continent. Currently, he is the PBA’s leading scorer, with the Tropang Texters near the top of the standings. He’s all set to be Gilas’s #1 PG in Spain for the World Cup, and, frankly, he has an outside chance of maybe turning some NBA scouts’ heads. By all intents and purposes, it looks like next year might continue to be another banner year for Asia’s best playmaker.
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EDITORS' PICK
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