Tycoon Manny V. Pangilinan (second from left) beams as Meralco hoists the Philippine Cup before Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (right) leads TNT to the championship in the Commissioner’s Cup that made it two-out-of-three for MVP teams in Asia’s pioneering pro league. —PHOTOS BY AUGUST DELA CRUZ .
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson doesn’t celebrate Christmas, but he was in a giving mood after TNT’s final game in the year that just passed by gifting teammates, coaches and staff with watches or shoes.
“These guys do so much for me,” Hollis-Jefferson, a practicing Muslim, said. “I just want to make them feel that I appreciate them.”
Article continues after this advertisement
Six months prior, Meralco star Chris Newsome finally realized the feeling he had long envisioned since entering the PBA almost a decade ago, helping highlight 2024 where two of Manny V. Pangilinan’s teams got the upper handover counterparts from rival San Miguel Corporation.
The Bolts ruled the Philippine Cup in Cinderella fashion after Newsome’s corner jumper defeated the San Miguel Beermen, who had a habit of winning the PBA’s most prestigious tournament.
“I didn’t know it’s gonna happen like this,” Newsome said as he soaked in the euphoria of being on the PBA mountaintop at long last. “It’s nice that I was able to stick it out with Meralco, the team that drafted me, the team that believed in me since Day One.”
Article continues after this advertisement
Newsome and Meralco won it to close out Season 48 before Hollis-Jefferson and TNT opened Season 49 that introduced a heavily-discussed four-point shot by taking the Governors’ Cup over crowd favorite Barangay Ginebra.
The MVP Group got two of the three titles contested in 2024–the other trophy was captured by San Miguel after beating sister team Magnolia in the Season 48 Commissioner’s Cup—in a rare run of success in the league dominated by SMC.
SMC’s domination
SMC teams have ruled the league in 18 of the last 22 conferences before Meralco and TNT’s title runs. Could that mean a changing of the guards?
San Miguel has since made a coaching shake-up, bringing back nine-time champion Leo Austria from his consultancy role in lieu of Jorge Gallent, the architect of the Commissioner’s Cup success during Love Month. The change came amid early struggles in the Beermen’s title defense.
Ginebra, on the other hand, underwent a transition phase after acquiring Stephen Holt and Isaac Go from Terrafirma and selecting RJ Abarrientos as the third pick in the Rookie Draft.
Dark horses
Magnolia, meanwhile, is currently struggling in the Commissioner’s Cup as it continues to search for a way to win the franchise’s first title since 2018 and shed the “Introvoys” tag that has been a source of ridicule among netizens on social media.
As the league continues to be a duopoly between SMC and MVP in terms of titles, two independent teams are trying to catch up.
Rain or Shine, under the firebrand Yeng Guiao, made two semis appearances in 2024 behind the traditional approach of developing young talent, while Converge has shown its intentions to break the SMC-MVP stranglehold after getting rookies Justine Baltazar and Jordan Heading to join Justin Arana and vastly-improved Alec Stockton.
Fans continue to call for balance in the league, which got itself the talk of the basketball world by being the first to install a second arc worth four points in a regular game.
The shot had its share of moments—such as two four-point game winners of Converge import Scotty Hopson in the Governors’ Cup, Magnolia’s Jerrick Ahanmisi becoming a sort of specialist from that region and NLEX star Robert Bolick hitting the first five-point play in both the All-Star Game and in a regular game.
But purists and critics still counter that the innovation or novelty could have been saved for exhibition affairs and turn the attention instead on improving gate attendance.
“I think we’re putting the pressure on young kids to come out and just shoot, learn to shoot, and that’s good enough,” Ginebra coach Tim Cone had said. “I think the game is more than that.”
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Your subscription has been successful.
It remains to be seen if the longest arc, installed as an experiment for this season, will create a long-term impact on the game, but league officials insisted that teams are not obligated to go for the quadruple every game.
