FAJARDO, ALAPAG LEADING PBA PLAYERS IN WORLD MEET
SEVILLE, Spain – Junmar Fajardo and Jimmy Alapag are the leading performers stats-wise among PBA players in the 2014 FIBA World Cup.
Fajardo ranked joint 72nd while Alapag was tied at 84th through the first four days of this fortnight of basketball festival in six Spanish cities.
No other PBA player made the Top 100 in the efficiency ranking where Gilas naturalized player Andray Blatche stood at No. 6.
Fajardo averaged six points and four rebounds in 9.3 minutes of action per game while Alapag put up 7.3 points, 3.7 assists and 1.0 rebound in 20.3 minutes an outing.
The 6-foot-10 San Miguel Beer behemoth was among the leaders in blocks, right outside the Top 10 with three against three fouls.
Korean Jonghyun Lee topped the category with nine, followed by Senegal’s Hamady Ndiaye (eight) and Spain’s Pau Gasol, Korean Jongkyu Kim, and Dominican Republic’s Eloy Vargas with seven apiece.
Alapag, meanwhile, ranked No. 17 in assists in a tie with NBA stars Stephen Curry and Kyrie Irving. Leading the playmaking department were Finnish Petteri Koponen (7.3), Argentines Facundo Campazzo (6.0) and Pablo Prigioni (6.0), Spanish Ricky Rubio (6.0) and Ukraine’s Eugene Jeter (5.7).
The 2011 PBA MVP was also right there among the best in three-point shooting. He’s one of 30 players shooting at least 50 percent.
Deadliest were Lithuanian teammates Jonas Maciulis (75 percent) and Adas Juskevicius (71.4 percent).
Blatche would be a major contender for the MVP award if only the team could make it past the preliminary round and go deep in the knockout stage.
Among the over 40 NBA players in the 24-team meet, Blatche paced everybody in double-double average and in rebounds, ranked fourth in scoring and was running sixth in overall efficiency.
The nine-year NBA veteran and Senegal’s Gorgui Dieng were actually the only two double-double performers in the tourney with Blatche logging 21 points and 13.7 rebounds per game and Senegalese norming 22 markers and 11.7 boards.
In overall efficiency, Blatche (66.0) was a joint sixth with Slovenian Goran Dragic and Dominican Francisco Garcia, behind Dieng (80.0), Gasol (76.0), Argentina’s Luis Scola (73.0) and the USA’s Anthony Davis (70.0) and Kenneth Faried (70.0).
As Gilas’ lone dominant post presence, Blatche averaged a tournament-best 13.7 rebounds a game, followed by Dieng (11.7), Turkey’s Omar Asik (9.3), Dominican Eulis Baez (9.0), Iran’s Hamed Haddadi (9.0), Vargas, and Croatian Ante Tomic (8.7).
Blatche was joint fourth in scoring with Garcia, not far behind leaders Gasol (23.7), Scola (23.0) and Dieng.
Rounding up the Top 10 scorers were Dragic (20.3), Puerto Rico’s Jose Barea (20.0), Croatia’s Bojan Bogdanovic (19.0), Anthony Davis (19.0) and Renaldo Balkman (18.0).
Blatche also figured well in steals at joint 10th in the category paced by the US’ James Harden (nine) and Stephen Curry (eight).
The downside was that Blatche was also among the tops on error department. Iran’s one-two forces Haddadi and Nikkhah Bahrami have committed a combined number of 33 while Blatche has turned the ball over 14 times.
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