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A STERLING all-around performance in the season’s first two conferences has given him the inside track for the PBA 2012-13 season Rookie of the Year award.
Yet a fellow newbie in Petron Blaze’s June Mar Fajardo is making a big late-season push and it will be up the voters to decide who to award the title to Friday before Game 4 of the ongoing PBA Governors Cup finals.
The Alaska forward is leading in the statistical categories and even lies third overall for the season in average statistical points with 28.0, just 0.1 SPs behind Commissioner’s Cup Best Player LA Tenorio of Barangay Ginebra.
Abueva actually led in the stats in the season-opening Philippine Cup, but Talk N Text Jayson Castro drew the most votes from representatives of the players, PBA and media after the Tropang Texters beat the Aces in their semifinals duel.
The same heartbreak was suffered by the Angeles City native in the mid-season Commissioner’s Cup as he again led in the stats but lost out to Tenorio in the voting.
This time, a bigger stumbling block in Fajardo stands in the way of Abueva finally bringing home a first individual hardware from the pros.
The 6-foot-10 Cebuano has leapfrogged out of 17th after two conferences and into No. 9 in the season MVP race after logging impressive numbers in the Governors Cup.
The 23-year-old, picked first overall over Abueva in the Draft, showed little of the wear and tear that should have been there following his Gilas Pilipinas stint by propping Petron into the season-ending finals.
And while Abueva’s performance took a slight dip as Alaska failed to make it past the quarterfinals, Fajardo’s numbers took off more so in the playoffs.
Already averaging 9.3 points and 8.5 rebounds in the eliminations, Fajardo logged 20 points and 8.0 rebounds in the one-game quarterfinals duel with Ginebra before norming 14.75 and 12.50 in the four-game semis series against last year’s champion Rain or Shine.
It will now be a matter of those casting their ballots taking into consideration what Abueva has done all season long, ranged against Fajardo’s relatively late blooming. (NC)
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