Instead, he was drafted in the second round by a FedEx team that badly needed to beef up its frontline for the coming Philippine Basketball Association season. And it could not have been a more perfect union.
While other teams passed up on Ferriols because he is an undersized power forward who could be exploited down low, the Express took in the bruising 6-3 scorer because of one crucial piece of data in his resume. He was a former Most Valuable Player in a now-defunct pro league.
Or did anybody forget?
Slowly though, Ferriols is starting to make people recall that, capping it with a splendid performance that earned him the Samsung Best Player Week during the stretch of Oct. 27 to Nov. 2 and helping the Express defeat Alaska to gain a safe passage to the quarterfinals.
Ferriols had a career-high 24 points, largely because the Aces had no one to stop his post moves and one-handed tosses to the ring down low.
"Si John, talagang maganda ang nilalaro lately, kahit sa practice," said FedEx coach Bonnie Garcia.
Ferriols couldn’t have picked a better time to explode.
The Express badly needed a win to wiggle out of any complication that may arise from the battle for a quarterfinal ticket in the struggling Group A.
"Ayaan na namin magkaroon pa ng playoff so we made sure that makuha na namin ito," said Garcia.