25 April 2014

For PhP 200 M, Expansion Teams Get Crap

PBA Expansion Teams
The three Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) expansion teams will be spending PhP 200 million each just to get the opportunity to field a team in Asian oldest professional basketball league. However, don’t expect NLEX, Blackwater, and Kia to organize a competitive team after the PBA decided not to grant their request for direct hires.

By denying the request of these three teams, it can't be denied where the league stands now.

In an obvious move to protect the interest of teams under the San Miguel Corporation (SMC), the league has also decided not to reduce the 10 member teams’ protected players from 14 to 10. With this decision, the league will still be allowing Ginebra San Miguel and San Mig Coffee a crack at the top rookies during the 2014 draft.

The only concession that the league can afford to give is to reduce the protected players of existing teams to 12 and giving the three expansion clubs more picks in the incoming draft. The league says that this will free more players for the picking of the three new squads in a separate expansion draft, slated before the end of July. The pool will contain the unprotected players and the undrafted rookies.

The problem is that, why even include undrafted rookies? They don’t have to be included in the draft because the expansion teams can easily negotiate with them directly.

Also, why set the draft for the expansion pool at the end of July? There is no benefit for NLEX, Blackwater, and Kia to participate in this expansion draft of practice players with low quality skills when they could wait until the end of the period for teams to sign their respective rookie choices and negotiate with those who are not included in the “Protect 12”.

Lastly, if previous expansion teams were allowed to hire directly from the amateur ranks, why not allow the three new teams to even hire even just one? Will that really hurt the league or will it only hurt the chances of SMC teams to pick Bobby Ray Parks or Chris Banchero?

Nobody buys the argument that the league is trying to balance the interest of the three expansion teams and the ten member teams anymore. Everyone know that this full of crap. What the league is protecting is only the interest of the three SMC teams.

Can anybody tell me how the direct hire will hurt Meralco, Talk N’ Text, Alaska, Red Bull, Air 21 and Rain or Shine? All of these teams can remain competitive even if they don’t have access to quality rookies.

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