Last Sunday, with little fanfare about the night’s event, 13,000 fans trooped to the Araneta Coliseum to watch an early season game between Ginebra and Purefoods (and perhaps, the matchup between the returning Mark Caguioa and James Yap). They didn’t seem to mind the dark cloud looming over the league with the Wynne Arboleda incident, or the mushrooming negative sentiment all over the Internet against the league after Powerade Team Pilipinas’ debacle in the Fiba-Asia Championship.

Continue reading "Rumors of the PBA’s death are greatly exaggerated: Week 1 thoughts"

Oh shut up. You know you’re going to click and read every link in this post. Kunyari ka pa.



Lolit Solis claims that the Carla Abellana-JC Intal breakup is just a gimmick, so fans would be fooled into thinking that Carla is available to fall in love with her Rosalinda leading man Geoff Eigenmann. Manay Lolit posts as proof pictures of the couple together.

Continue reading "Fire Quinito links: Showbiz na showbiz edition"

I guess nobody forwarded the Commissioner's Office Rafe's blog post:

Continue reading "PBA statement on Wynne Arboleda's suspension"

Last Tuesday night, I had the privilege of meeting up with Michael Yu, the man behind the college basketball magazine Rebound. We had a nice lively chat about hoops, mostly rumors that can’t be printed on this site. We had another reason for getting together, though; he wanted me to write about my thoughts on the magazine, and even gave me copies of the first two issues for free. I told him that I would love to do it, although I was going to be candid on this blog. I dug into the two issues, and while I was thinking about it, I realized I am eminently qualified to write a review about magazines.

Continue reading "Reviewing Rebound Magazine"

SBP Executive Director Noli Eala chimed in on the raging Wynne Arboleda issue, and his comments, which he made over a series of Twitter posts, were interesting to say the least:

Continue reading "More Wynne links: Noli Eala unloads on Burger King and the PBA, and a legal analysis of the possible Arboleda suspension"

I’d like to point everyone to this thoughtful analysis from Rafe Bartholomew of the Wynne Arboleda incident. I would call it a must-read, but if you’ve been reading this blog long enough, you’d know that pretty much everything Rafe writes is a must-read. While he doesn’t absolve and condone Wynne’s behavior, he does empathize with the Burger King guard and points out flaws in our culture along the way. I grew up watching basketball in the environment that Rafe describes; I’d written about how my mom took me to my first PBA game when I was six, featuring my favorite Purefoods Hotdogs against the evil Ginebra team led by Robert Jaworski, and a riot damn near broke out.

Continue reading "Wynne-gate"

I wrote a feature about UAAP for FHM, and it includes a wrap-up of season 72 and a sneak preview of season 73. Also, corny jokes:

Continue reading "Fire Quinito's UAAP postmortem on FHM"

If you follow Philippine basketball, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that there was a fight in this afternoon’s game between Burger King and Smart Gilas. Yeng Guiao’s teams, after all, have been known to play a physical brand of basketball, and between the Guiao-Toroman issue and the Japeth Aguilar controversy, there’s enough bad blood between the two teams to know that the air would be combustible.

But who figured that the fight would be between Burger King point guard Wynne Arboleda and a heckler later identified as Alain Katigbak, a fan of Smart Gilas and Ateneo and a friend of Chris Tiu? (UPDATED: Chris's brother Charles left a comment clarifying that the Gilas team captain does not know the person involved, contrary to Fidel Mangonon's earlier tweet.)

Continue reading "Fight mars Burger King’s victory over debuting Smart Gilas"

Rain or Shine Elastopainters

Looking back: Rain or Shine had a breakout season in 2008-2009, making it out of the wildcards for the first time in the Philippine Cup and, with import Jai Lewis, going all the way to the semifinals in the Fiesta Conference. After getting a pair of dynamic rookies in Gabe Norwood and Sol Mercado, coach Caloy Garcia installed a new system predicated on spacing the floor and dribble-penetration, similar to the dribble-drive motion offense ran by John Calipari.

Continue reading "Fire Quinito 2009-2010 PBA preview, part 2"

Alaska Aces

Looking back: Alaska started the 2008-2009 PBA season well, as the team came a Willie Thriller layup short of winning the Philippine Cup. The loss, however, seemed to weigh heavily on coach Tim Cone’s wards, and an unhappy Aces team finished second to the last during the Fiesta Conference. Things got even worse in the offseason when star guard Miller asked to be traded, a request Alaska denied.

Continue reading "Fire Quinito 2009-2010 PBA preview, part 1"