Batangas wants Helterbrand for MPBL

MANILA, Philippines — After ruling the inaugural conference of the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League, the Batangas Athletics are hoping to land ex-Ginebra star and six-time PBA champion Jayjay Helterbrand in its lineup.

“Helterbrand? That’s possible,” said Lucio Tan Jr., the main backer of the Batangas squad that bested the Muntinlupa Cagers in the best-of-five finals, 3-1, of the home-and-away league last week.

“But we’ll see. We haven’t discussed the lineup for the next conference,” added the son and namesake of the Filipino-Chinese business tycoon.

The next MPBL conference kicks off on June 12 with a big jump in the number of participating teams from only 10 to 18 and a couple more knocking on the doors of the league, a brainchild of boxing icon Manny Pacquiao.

Helterbrand, 41, retired from the PBA last year, following a colorful career that began in 2000. He is one of the very few players who started and ended a PBA career playing for a single team.

Athletics team manager Dondon Dimacuha, former mayor of Batangas City, broached the idea of luring Helterbrand out of retirement during the team’s victory party the other night at the Sheraton Hotel.

“We’re thinking of Helterbrand,” he said of the 2009 MVP in the PBA, who had a very brief stint with the Batangas Blades in the defunct Metropolitan Basketball League (MBL) before landing a spot in the Ginebra lineup in 2000.