After a crazy quarterfinal round, the stage is set for the PBA Philippine Cup final four. The cast features 3 teams that belong to the San Miguel Corporation, which again reinforces perceptions by the league’s critics that the PBA is an SMC league. Some even say that the PBA is set up so that SMC teams would always end up on the winning end of most tournaments.

The grand conspiracy argument doesn’t hold much water. If it were true, there’s no way Sta. Lucia would have won the 2008 Philippine Cup over Purefoods in a close seven-game series wherein James Yap was suspended for one game for the same flagrant 2 penalty called on Ranidel de Ocampo last Friday. Imagine David Stern suspending Kobe Bryant on an iffy call in an NBA finals series against a team like the Milwaukee Bucks.

That doesn’t mean to say that SMC teams do not have an advantage. The PBA landscape today gives the rich teams a leg up when it comes to acquiring talent, and each of the SMC teams have taken advantage to build up its arsenal.

By my count, Ginebra, Purefoods, and San Miguel have acquired a total of 19 players through lopsided trades over the past 5 PBA seasons. The trend started prior to the 2006-07 season, when Ginebra and San Miguel ransacked the roster of erstwhile sister team Coca-Cola just before the corporation let go of the franchise. Over the next several years, each SMC team found more willing partners in Red Bull and Air 21 who would let go of their star players for a song.

	Acquired by	From	Season	Notes
Marc Pingris	Purefoods	Air 21	2005-06	Traded to San Miguel for Enrico Villanueva in 2008, acquired back by Purefoods in 2009
Rudy Hatfield	Ginebra	Coke	2006-07	Went off the deep end after leading Ginebra to a Philippine Cup championship
Billy Mamaril	Ginebra	Coke	2006-07
Rafi Reavis	Ginebra	Coke	2006-07	Traded to Purefoods in 2009
Ronald Tubid	Ginebra	Air 21	2006-07
Lordy Tugade	San Miguel	Red Bull	2006-07
Enrico Villanueva	San Miguel	Red Bull	2007-08	Traded to Purefoods in 2008, traded to Ginebra in 2009
Larry Fonacier	San Miguel	Red Bull	2007-08	Traded to Alaska in 2008
Junthy Valenzuela	Ginebra	Red Bull	2007-08
Mick Pennisi	San Miguel	Red Bull	2008-09
Rich Alvarez	Purefoods	Red Bull	2008-09	Traded to Ginebra in 2009
Cyrus Baguio	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
JC Intal	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Doug Kramer	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Homer Se	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Don Allado	Purefoods	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Celino Cruz	Purefoods	Air 21/BK	2008-09	Traded to Ginebra in 2009
KG Canaleta	Purefoods	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Arwind Santos	San Miguel	Air 21/BK	2009-10

The data does not reflect the indirect benefits of one SMC team acquiring new star players to its sister teams. For example, San Miguel benefitted when Ginebra acquired Hatfield, Mamaril, and Reavis from Coke, because it opened the door for the Beermen to trade for Ginebra’s Rommel Adducul, who had become expendable. When San Miguel acquired Villanueva, Adducul was shipped to Purefoods. Pingris found his way back to Purefoods from San Miguel this season after the arrival of Santos to the Beermen’s camp.

I also did not include in the table the first round draft picks acquired by the Beermen from Coke during the ransacking. San Miguel used the second overall pick in 2007 to draft Samigue Eman, and the third pick in the 2008 draft to trade for Jay Washington. These were non-trivial assets.

Of course, it’s not just the SMC teams doing this. Talk N Text has been just as brazen about stockpiling talent over the past several years. Another rich franchise, Coca-Cola, seems to be going in that direction.

Meanwhile, the Photokina (Red Bull/Barako Bull) and Lina (Air 21/Burger King) franchises have had no scruples about letting their players go to the highest bidders. Sta. Lucia, a franchise beset by financial difficulty, might be going down the same path. In the PBA board, only Alaska and Rain or Shine might be inclined to pursue changes to the system, and even then they are vastly outnumbered.

There hasn’t been nearly enough outrage from the fans. I tried to incite outrage when Burger King sold off Santos to San Miguel, but it was met by general apathy. The Filipino basketball fan’s mindset is rarely about playing fair, and mostly about getting an advantage at any cost. It runs true from college basketball – seriously, check out the message board discussions on high school prospects by fans of elite schools – up to the pros. Hell, think about how Smart Gilas fans wanted Japeth Aguilar on the team, at any cost, relationships be damned.

We want our teams to cut every corner to get the best players. Should it come as any surprise when they do exactly that?

I wasn’t able to tweet during the Team Pilipinas game versus Kuwait or post a quick report on it because I was out late partying with Lady Gaga last night. Just kidding. Anyway, this morning, my friends who went to the show couldn’t get over the size of her penis.

Oh, right, the game. Team Pilipinas won over Kuwait, 85-71, and the game was apparently so unremarkable that a minor commotion erupted on Twitter about the pronunciation of the Kuwait. I’m just glad Andy Jao wasn’t involved; otherwise, people would be flooding my email again demanding that I burn him at the stake.

Team Pilipinas now prepares for a tough quarterfinal outing against the loser of tonight’s showdown between China and Jordan, which is probably going to be Jordan. I don’t want to look ahead, and I feel like I’ve said enough about that match-up. I just think that while we would decidedly be underdogs, we have a fighting chance. That’s all we could hope for at this point.

Anyway, while we’re here, let’s talk about a couple of stories that came out this morning. There was this filler piece posted on GMA News titled “Wanted: Caidic-like triggerman for RP team.” I read that and thought to myself, “Wow, what an absolute piece of garbage.”

First, it’s unfair because since the Korea game, our perimeter game has been humming, and the outside shooting of our backcourt has been the key to our performance. It’s a slap in the face for Willie Miller, James Yap, Jayjay Helterbrand, and even Cyrus Baguio, who have been the heroes of this team.

Second, the Philippines will never run out of guards who can snipe; the 2002 Asian Games team and the 2007 Fiba-Asia team did fairly well from the perimeter, even if neither team had a gunner as good as Caidic on the roster. The writer could have written “Wanted: Kobe Bryant-like scorer for RP team” or “Wanted: Tim Duncan like inside presence for RP team” and he would have been more accurate.

Team Pilipinas coach Yeng Guiao also made the sports headlines as he called for the PBA to continue representing the country in international competitions by forming a pool that would play regularly during PBA break. It's an idea with which I wholeheartedly agree. I believe that the best players in the country should represent us in international play, and with apologies to the Smart Gilas Developmental Team, they’re not the best players in the country. Who would you rather have taking the last shot for Team Pilipinas, James Yap or Chris Tiu? Mac Cardona or JV Casio?

Oh, and don’t throw the Northern Consolidated Cement national team analogy in my face. You know what else the NCC team had? Three imports: Dennis Still, Jeff Moore, and Chip Engelland. You could talk about the system till you’re blue in the face, but at the end of the day, between two teams with the same amount of preparation, talent wins.

When it rains, it pours. After its perimeter scoring went dry as the Ilocos sand dunes against South Korea, the Team Pilipinas corps of snipers made it rain this afternoon, hitting 15 three-pointers against Chinese Taipei en route to a 77-70 victory. James Yap and Willie Miller led the way with 6 and 5 three-point baskets, respectively. Yap keyed a 3rd quarter run that allowed Team Pilipinas to take the lead after trailing for most of the game, while Miller’s last three-pointer with 20 seconds left in the game pushed the lead to 5 and sealed the deal for the Nationals.

Team Pilipinas bucked another slow start, as they had trouble containing the athletic big men of Chinese Taipei led by the long-haired Tseng Wen-Ting, who looks right out of a Hong Kong gangster flick – I could imagine him following orders from his Triad bosses after the game to put a hit on Chow Yun-Fat. The Philippines’ slower frontliners had trouble keeping in step, with the team's best athlete, Japeth Aguilar, still looking out of rhythm coming off an injury.

Things turned around in the 3rd quarter, when Yap scored 15 of his 23 points in the period on 4 three-pointers and a three-point play. Miller, Cyrus Baguio, Jayjay Helterbrand also each made a three-pointer in the quarter, including a sensational buzzer beater by Helterbrand that pushed the lead to 8, 62-54.

But Team Pilipinas relaxed at the start of the fourth quarter, allowing Chinese Taipei to tie the game with an 8-0 run, and subsequently reclaim the lead. Timely sniping from Helterbrand and Miller gave the Philippines some breathing space, even as much-maligned big men Sonny Thoss and Kerby Raymundo stepped up in the endgame to shut down Tseng and his cohorts underneath, before Miller’s dagger three put the game out of reach.

Any win at this stage is heartening, but this one was special because the team’s shooting finally came together. When we shoot this way, we always, always have a chance against any team in the tournament.

I’m worried now about our big men, not necessarily their effort (I know they’re trying their best), but their ability. With Aguilar struggling, Kelly Williams out, and Ranidel left off the team, there’s just no athleticism in the frontcourt apart from Raymundo. We always knew that we’re going to execute offense better, and games like this show that we’re going to shoot well from time to time. But we can’t do anything about our unathletic big guys. Pucha, paano mo papagalawin si Thoss na parang hindi mabigat yung bayag niya? Hindi naman na-ko-coach yun.

Up next for Team Pilipinas is defending Fiba-Asia champions Iran. Game’s live tomorrow at 11 am.

It wasn’t as bad as their performance in the opener, but Powerade Team Pilipinas suffered another setback in its second game in the 31st William Jones Cup in Taipei. The host’s Team A survived a second-half charge by our boys to come away with an 86-77 victory.

The Nationals’ shooting woes continued to haunt them at the start of the game, as the Taiwanese opened with a 12-0 run to begin the game and kept the Filipinos at bay for most of the first half. But Powerade Team Pilipinas caught fire in the second half, cutting the lead to three by the end of the third quarter.

The rally carried on through the fourth quarter, with the Nationals tying the game at 70-all with about five minutes to play. Chinese Taipei, though, got its second wind and ended the game with a 16-7 run to hand the Philippines its second straight loss.

It was still frustrating to watch them fumble through the game (even more so over choppy Internet live streaming), but at least there are signs of the team coming together. Japeth Aguilar, Jared Dillinger, and Cyrus Baguio led the charge during the second-half rally, bringing in copious amounts of energy to spark the team, although the offense, to borrow my joke from the PBA finals series, is still uglier than Dorian Pena.

Sure, the team hasn’t been shooting well, but I’m more bothered by the point guard play, which has been ATROCIOUS on both ends of the floor (I’m looking at you, Willie Miller). I’m worried because while Ryan Reyes and Jayjay Helterbrand are expected back for the Fiba-Asia tournament, who knows what kind of shape they’ll be in? I’m still waiting for Guiao to at least try putting out lineup with either Gabe Norwood or Jared Dillinger, both of whom saw extensive minutes at backup point guard for their PBA teams, quarterbacking the team.

So the San Miguel Beermen are the champions of the 2009 PBA Fiesta Conference, hammering Ginebra, 90-79. The Beermen led from start to finish, frustrating every comeback mounted by the Gin Kings.

I know I picked Ginebra to win, but I also offered a caveat that San Miguel would win if Marc Pingris went berserk (in a good way). And go berserk he did, punishing Ginebra’s small forwards on the block and off the offensive boards, so much so that Ginebra coach Jong Uichico was forced to counter with a big lineup. It worked in game 5, when David Noel had a good shooting game, but in game 6 and game 7, it paralyzed the Gin Kings offense. Ginebra’s halfcourt sets were uglier than Dorian Pena and Mick Pennisi.

I was surprised that Uichico refused to make bigger adjustments in game 7, keeping with his game plan of dumping the ball down low to Eric Menk, who looked like he was suffering from arthritis and rheumatism all game long. He played right into Siot Tanquincen’s hands.

I’d also noted how San Miguel’s players are a bunch of frontrunners, guys who play infinitely better when they’re leading all game. Their hot start in game 7, powered by Pingris and Gabe Freeman, was really the key to the whole.

I had neglected to mention the San Miguel backcourt’s performance in the series. Apart from taking advantage of the flat-footed Ginebra guards, who allowed more penetration than Hayden Kho’s girlfriends, Jonas Villanueva, Mike Cortez, and even Dondon Hontiveros also did a great job staying in front of their opponents on the defensive end.

San Miguel deserves all the credit in the world, but the most enjoyable performance of the series has to go to Jayjay Helterbrand, who was out there dragging his leg and willing his team to stay in the game. I know his team finished second, but Helterbrand was every inch the champion.

This marks the end of the 2008-2009 PBA season, but this only marks the beginning of the journey for our country’s best players, as the Powerade Team Pilipinas begins their first big test tomorrow night at the Jones Cup tournament in Taiwan. San Miguel’s Mick Pennisi and Ginebra’s Uichico, Helterbrand, and Cyrus Baguio will be joining the rest of the team. It should be a long flight for those guys to Taipei.