‘WHY FIX WHAT AIN’T BROKE’

Riding high on the success of its 37th season, the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) will reprise that record-setting year and adopt the same format for 2012-2013 wars.
And foremost among the features that will remain unchanged would be the unlimited height ceiling for imports in the season’s second Conference, the Commissioner’s Cup.
This was arrived at in the PBA board of governors’ pre-season directional meeting in Macau this weekend.
In reports coming from the Asian gambling mecca, the board also voted to do away with the double round robin eliminations and focus instead on the more exciting quarterfinal and semifinal playoff rounds like in the previous Philippine and Commissioner’s Cups.
“So, why fix what ain’t broke?” asked a member of the PBA board who asked anonymity pending an official announcement from the league regarding the Macau meeting.
According to him, initial figures showed that the 37th season had surpassed the previous year’s record gross revenues of P90 million and this had the PBA board upbeat about the 2012-2013 season.
The source added that the league had already raked in about P100 million after the second Conference and the board was just awaiting the final figures that would include the Governors’ Cup revenues that could even push earnings to as high as P150 million — another record high.
“The prospects are very bright considering that in the third Conference, a team with less considerable draw like Rain or Shine made it all the way to the Finals and even won the championship. And to top that, their Game 7 against B-Meg even drew in 20,583 playing fans which was the highest recorded attendance for the entire 37th season,” he said.
Apart from Rain or Shine’s maiden title romp this year, the 37th staging of the PBA also saw the emergence of Powerade as a serious contender after the Tigers pulled off the league’s biggest turnaround, surging back from last place in the quarterfinal to make it to the Finals of the Philippine Cup.
These developments have reportedly got the PBA board all pumped up and optimistic about the coming season which starts Aug. 19 with the PBA Rookie Draft set at the Robinsons Mall in Manila.
“That Rookie Draft could also turn out to be the richest and most colorful, in terms of player quality, in years,” he added.
Earlier reports had said that 6-foot-9 behemoth Jun Mar Fajardo will definitely be picked No. 1 in the Draft by Petron Blaze while the second pick, which belongs to Alaska, will either be Calvin Abueva or Cliff Hodge, a pair of 6-foot-5 power forwards.
The Boosters pick anew at third and would likely draft the cager that the Aces would not take between Abueva and Hodge.