The buzz is that after winning the Philippine Cup championship, Purefoods will be changing its name to promote the company’s B-Meg line of animal feeds. An NBN Sports report said that the new name will be the ‘Derby Ace Llamados’ after B-Meg’s gamefowl feeds brand. I don’t mind the Derby Ace name, but do they really have to pander so shamefully to the lo-diyes crowd with the Llamados nickname? Why not the Derby Ace Slashers, which is way cooler?

Then again, the team is already currently nicknamed the ‘Tender Juicy Giants’ which has to be one of the most awful (and frankly, kinda gay) nicknames in the history of basketball, so rooting for the Llamados wouldn’t be so bad, right? Also it could’ve been worse, as the team could’ve been named after hog pellets or tilapia feeds. Or chick boosters.

Still, part of me thinks that this is San Miguel Corporation management’s punishment for Purefoods for kicking San Miguel’s ass in the semifinals.

Anyway, a lot of interesting stuff around the Internet after Purefoods’ masterful victory over the Alaska Aces last night.

• You should all start checking out IV Point Play, an impressive new Pinoy sports blog by Polo Bustamante and Carlo Araneta. The guys also produce a pretty entertaining podcast called ‘From the Stands’ (episode 4 was particularly good). Both guys behind the blog are Alaska fans, so I enjoyed their analysis of how Purefoods won: “So the Purefoods TJ Giants are kings of the Philippine Basketball world, and they totally deserve it, while Alaska, for the second straight year, is left searching for what prevents them from taking the next step forward. Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same.”


• Jude Turcuato attended the game live last night, and raved about the King of the PBA, James Yap: “A smooth operator, he doesn't get too excited or too down. He is like a well oiled machine built to play on the court and get the job done. He is the best offensive player in the PBA right now and it seems his defense is catching up as well. You can tell that although he doesn’t talk much, his teammates rely on him to lead them and James embraces the responsibility. James is a player who has the fans holding their breath in anticipation whenever he has the ball. Very few have that ability.”
  
  There’s also this interesting note on Jude’s discussion with Coach Ryan before the team drafted Yap in 2004: “When Coach Ryan told me that James is the best player in the draft, I thought he was in one of his hyperbolic raves again. I worked with him in the UAAP panel and a little in the PBA and he did have a tendency to get over excited about basketball, which I think is great.”


• The last several games of Purefoods are available on Bit Torrent at IP Mart. You can download using the using these credentials – username: tjgiants2010/password: tjgiants. As always, with these things, kindly seed.


• Finally, Ginebra fans taking on Alaska with a little help from the April Boys: