Imports, small and terrible

While most of the PBA teams, excluding the eliminated, are busy preparing for the playoffs, Coach Ato Agustin and the rest of his San Miguel Beermen are busy preparing for the Governor’s Cup.

As the cellar-dwellers of the Commissioner’s Cup, the Beermen gained the incentive to select a 6’6” import. Do bad and be rewarded – how’s that for a rule. By the way, the new SMB/Petron import could pretty much be Gabe Freeman.

Let’s face it: None of these Commissioner’s Cup imports really made an impact. Nate Brumfield, Paul Harris, and perhaps Alpha Bangura are all ok, but they're no way near the level of imports some years back.

Sonny Thoss towers over San Miguel import David Young

I watched the PBA transform from a league where Tony Harris would average 50 points a night to a league where Harris wouldn’t have high numbers but can still contribute to the squad via rebounds and defensive presence.

If you remember Lamont Strothers, he’s small but he’ll aggressively snatch boards and chase loose balls. Another hardworking import is Shawn Daniels. He lasted a number of conferences because he was an unselfish team player that can haul massive amount of boards. Sean Chambers, Chris Alexander and Diamon Simpson are imports who all barely got 30 points all the time but frequently registered 15 to 20 rebounds per game. They're the imports that changed the game.

With guys like James Yap, Gary David and Macmac Cardona dishing out import-like performances, imports better be effective in other aspects of the game. And if the 6'4”/6'2” imports of today can’t do that, we better fix the system. We can’t continue getting imports who can only churn out 15 points and nine rebounds.

Besides, imports are here not only to spice up the league but also to promote a higher level of play. They encourage the local guys to play world-class basketball. The current crop and the previous batches of imports certainly prove that we need to go bigger.

Unfortunately, the PBA decided to do it selectively via an import handicapping system. Bad teams get 6'6” imports, middle teams get 6'4” ones and bad teams get 6'2” ones.

The word “handicapping” itself suggests advantage of one over the other. If I am in charge, there's no way I’ll implement this rule. It is the job of teams to do well and not be rewarded with bigger imports if they suck. Besides, this rule just promotes possible tanking of teams at the end of eliminations.

Now it looks like Powerade & SMB/Petron will be rewarded. Petron might enlist Gabe Freeman, easily a 20-15 import. The rest will have to do with 6'4” and 6'2” guys – basically the type of imports playing now in the Commissioner’s Cup.  A semi-disaster batch with only four imports averaging 10 rebounds per game and lacking high scoring ability. Fact is, some teams can even win without their imports because they’re small and the level of play/height of the locals are now way up from a decade or so. Locals can routinely handle 6'2” and 6'3” guys. At this point, some local players are basically looking at these imports as better scoring versions of Mark Cardona, James Yap and Gary David.

Bigger imports, let’s Douh-it!

If I’m the commissioner, I’ll have unlimited height for Commissioner's Cup and a 6'6” limit for the Governor’s Cup. This way, we’ll get accustomed to playing typical 6'6” wingmen/guards and imposing biggies like Marcus Douthit and Chris Alexander. We’ll have 6-6 imports who play their natural position, small-forward, quick, flashy, a scorer. For sure, they’ll up the level of PBA play, bring more excitement to the league, and pose a better challenge to the locals.