San Miguel Beermen is one of the pillars of Philippine Basketball Association by bringing in 19 championships, represented the Philippine Team in 1994 Asian Games and the longest staying team in the league (or should I say one of the original teams)
With the announcement last July of this year, the SMB team will participate in ASEAN Basketball League. ABL is a professional basketball league where it composes of several Asian teams like Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and even Philippines with Philippine Patriots.
According to Mr. Noli Eala, one of the SMC’s basketball operations director, the team will be handled by the legendary Bobby Parks. Parks, the only seven-time Best Import Awardee in the PBA and one of the assistant coaches of Petron Blaze Boosters (formerly San Miguel Beermen).
While the start of the ABL will be on January of next year (2012), SMB is very busy completing their lineup for the league. According to some sources, Junmar Fajardo, Chris Banchero, Junjun Cabatu, Benedict Fernandez and Marc Andaya (I’m not so sure) will be in the lineup for SMB (with two imports of course, Richard Jeter is the one).
For me, the move by SMC to have a team in ABL is one of marketing strategy. They want (SMC products) be known in the Asian market. Again, the magic of Mr. Eala regarding this move is magnificent. And I’m pretty sure that SMB will be competitive team in ABL.
With their present yet incomplete line-up of SMB, Junmar Fajardo will be the next big thing in Philippine Basketball. Mentored by the famous Don Ramon Fernandez, in a year or two The Kraken Fajardo will be a force to reckon in the professional league (hello PBA 2012 Draft - Petron Blaze Boosters). Chris Banchero is also one of the players eyed by Toroman to join the Smart Gilas, but because of injury, he was unable to represent the country in Wuhan.
These two players will be the corner stone of SMB in ABL. And I’m sure that the winning tradition of SMB will continue in ABL as what they did to PBA.
Goodluck Beermen!
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