Philippine basketball has started to develop a small but vibrant community on Twitter, and Fire Quinito’s newest feature, The Sweetest Tweets, round up the best messages, in 140 characters or less.

Continue reading "The Sweetest Tweets, featuring Rod Nealy, Sol Mercado, Robby Reyes"

• Noynoy Aquino was proclaimed the 15th president of the Philippines yesterday, which would make James Yap part of the extended First Family. Funny, even though he could end up winning his second MVP award and lead his team to a sweep of the two PBA tournaments, he still wouldn’t have had as good a year as his brother-in-law has had.

Continue reading "Thursday Bullets, starring Noy and James, Jeffrey Cariaso, and the comedic stylings of Dyan Castillejo"

There’s something curious about Chito Salud’s appointment as deputy commissioner of the PBA by the league’s Board of Governors last week. This year’s chairman, Lito Alvarez – aka the mama san of Air 21’s virtual brothel of up-and-coming PBA players who will end up for sale sooner or later – described the decision as unanimous when it was announced about a week ago.

Continue reading "The PBA board is unanimous in hiring Chito Salud as deputy commissioner, except when it’s not"

Rafe Bartholomew makes an excellent point in the comments section of the previous post about Smart Gilas’ search for an import:

Continue reading "Import search remains the biggest challenge for Smart Gilas"

The ongoing Jamal Sampson saga has created some buzz even in the mainstream media: both the Manila Standard Today and GMANews.TV picked up the story last Thursday, while Patricia Hizon’s (always excellent) column for Standard Today last Friday carried the only reaction from an SBP official so far, from newly-minted Smart Gilas team manager Frankie Lim. Yesterday, Abante Tonite’s Zaldy Perez also mentioned the blog post in his column.

(It’s weird though, I always figured that if an Abante Tonite column was going to run my stuff, it would be for Dear Xerex. Especially on the eve of Valentine’s. But I digress.)

Continue reading "Jamal Sampson issue builds buzz; import answers Rajko Toroman"

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a curious source: Smart Gilas import Jamal Sampson. He took issue with an item I posted about his performance in China, where I quoted a ShamSports report calling him “a pretty awful offensive player.” Sampson said that during the season in question, when he averaged a paltry 10 points and 10 rebounds, he was playing with a hamstring injury. He also pointed out that in a previous season in China, he dominated the CBA, leading the Liaoning team to the finals, while averaging upwards of 20 points and 20 rebounds. One report on Eurobasket even called him “arguably the most expensive and impressive import in CBA history.”

Contrary to reports, Sampson said that he is still under contract with Smart Gilas, even as he is working to get a release, with a bigger offer in China waiting for him. In a series of emails to Fire Quinito, Sampson wrote about the problems he has encountered with Smart Gilas.

As always, this blog is open to any response from the SBP and Smart Gilas regarding this matter.

Continue reading "Jamal Sampson speaks on Smart Gilas and the SBP"

Last night, I decided to go out with friends instead of staying home to watch PBA action. I figured, “Hey, it’s just one night, what could possibly happen?”

Well, shit happened.

I turned to the replay of the Talk N Text walkout on BTV as I stumbled into my house past midnight, with the team already in the dugout. I read updates on Twitter over what happened, and, had an angry, drunken rant on Twitter about the issue.

Continue reading "The Talk N Text walkout"

I wanted to write about this big development a couple of days ago, but more important things at my day job kept me busy. Rey Joble broke the news that erstwhile Talk N Text team manager Frankie Lim was taking over the management of Smart Gilas, whose day-to-day operations were being handled by Samahang Basketball ng Pilipinas executive director Noli Eala. Interestingly, Joble was the same guy who reported that the SBP had offered the controversial Japeth Aguilar an P18-m contract to jump ship from Burger King to Smart Gilas, which belied earlier claims by Eala that they had not offered Aguilar anything.

The SBP issued a statement officially announcing the move on Thursday evening. It quoted SBP Vice Chairman and Talk N Text team governor Ricky Vargas explaining the decision.

Continue reading "Frankie Lim to take over Smart Gilas management from Noli Eala"

During one of my first email exchanges with Manila Vanilla’s Rafe Bartholomew, when this blog was new, he cited as his favorite Quinito Henson moment a series of columns last year on ex-Sta Lucia import Lee Benson.

An ex-convict, Benson was part of an “inspiring” feature by Quinito titled “Against all odds”. Benson’s recovery, Quinito wrote: “If there’s anyone who knows what defying the odds is all about, it’s Benson.” Quinito then proceeded to detail how Benson managed to carve out a career as a professional basketball player despite serving 8 1/2 years in prison.

Continue reading "The (character) assassination of CJ Giles by the lackey Rick Olivares"

The Nokia Pilipinas Under-16 National Team, coached by Eric Altamirano and led by Ateneo Blue Eaglets star Kiefer Ravena, was all over the sports headlines today after winning a pocket tournament in Cebu that featured Chinese Taipei, Japan, and Iran. The team had a very impressive 77-57 victory in the finals over Iran, whose senior men’s team is the two-time defending Asian champions.

I don’t know exactly the caliber of the other teams who participated in the tournament, if these really were their countries’ national youth teams, although two of Iran’s top scorers, Soheil Yousefi and Mohammad Ojaghi, also represented the country in last July’s Asian Youth Games 3-on-3 basketball tournament. Still, this was a very impressive performance for Nokia Pilipinas.

Continue reading "The Philippine National Team we all could get behind"