Fajardo cinch for BPC plum?
The knee injury suffered by San Miguel Beer main man June Mar Fajardo should not and most probably would not get in his way to claiming the Smart Bro PBA Philippine Cup Best Player of the Conference.
Fajardo is well entrenched on top in the stats race and would win it in runaway fashion even if he misses the best-of-seven finale.
The BPC race was practically all over by the time Greg Slaughter and his Barangay Ginebra team failed to get past the quarterfinals round, falling in a big upset by Globalport.
For a while, Terrence Romeo waged a rally with an career-best 41-point explosion in the opener of the Globalport-Alaska Milk Final Four face-off. But the 5-foot-10 backcourt ace faded as quickly or even before they eventually lost their semis tussle with the Alaska Milk Aces.
The stats leader practically from day one, Fajardo has made the BPC race no contest as he even stepped up his game in the semifinals.
Through Game Five of the San Miguel-Rain or Shine semis showdown, Fajardo led the league in scoring (26.75 ppg), rebounding (15.0 ppg) and blocks (1.82)
In the semis, he hiked his averages to 34.8 points and 16.4 rebounds and 3.2 blocks.
The interesting question is whether the season MVP honors would come along with the all-Filipino BPC plum for Fajardo.
To be awaited is whether Fajardo would have a yearlong brilliance that would put him in a good position to achieve an unprecedented third straight reign as league MVP.
Before Fajardo, only three players have taken back-to-back PBA MVP honors.
Bogs Adornado (1975 and 1976) didn’t get a shot at a third straight when he suffered a major injury in 1977. Alvin Patrimonio drifted to the second mythical selection in 1995 after being the league MVP in 1993 and 1994. Danny Ildefonso took a dive in 2002 after his back-to-back MVP conquests in 2000 and 2001.
In the case of Fajardo, he would have a buffer once he eventually wins the Philippine Cup BPC plum. There’s also his super stats line to be carried over to the next two conferences.
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