MACAU'S COACHING SWITCH

It's normal in the PBA to change imports.

Despite his great offensive showing, the Magnolia Hotshots replaced Nuni Omot with Clint Chapman because of the team's 0–3 start. And due to an injury, Blackwater's Daniel Ochefu has been replaced by Sedrick Barefield's childhood buddy, Robert Upshaw III.

Through the years, we have had legendary names emerge from replacement imports.

I mean, can you imagine Barangay Ginebra without Justin Brownlee?

Yes, Paul Harris was a good import. Still, JB has climbed to PBA Mount Rushmore status because of the championships, not to mention his Gilas Pilipinas achievements, which happened because the former went down due to injury.

The more unusual case is switching coaches in the middle of the conference. Aside from the fact that we hardly see it, it's a move deemed controversial because it usually stems from a team's mediocrity or an internal dispute.

Such is the case when Garrett Kelly was replaced by the Macau Black Knights with former ABL World Import MVP and Christian Standhardinger teammate Marcus Elliott. In the 2017 ABL season, Elliott helped Hong Kong Eastern win the ABL championship, where he was also named Finals MVP. Aside from C-Stan, another teammate of Elliott is former Brooklyn Net and one-time San Miguel import Josh Boone.

The coaching switch is an easy one for the Black Knights. I know the quality of guest teams in the PBA has been on a decline since the Bay Area Dragons, but Macau has been winless in three starts this conference. And sure, Macau has been hopping from league to league for some time now, but so have Bay Area and Hong Kong Eastern. Basically, the guest teams playing in the PBA are like nomads who go from league to league to bully and disrupt a league's history by claiming a championship that should have been reserved for the regular teams.

Since the start of the PBA, only three guest teams have made it to the PBA Finals. Nicholas Stoodley, a team comprising Americans, won the 1980 PBA Invitational Championship. Then Northern Consolidated Cement, composed of Chip Engelland, Jeff Moore, and the core of the FIBA Asia Championship squad, won the 1985 PBA Reinforced Conference. The thing is, the 1980 PBA Invitational was a pocket tournament, while NCC was mostly composed of local players.

The Bay Area Dragons would have been the first guest team to win a major PBA conference, but they were defeated by Barangay Ginebra San Miguel in the 2022–23 PBA Commissioner's Cup Finals. Two seasons later, Hong Kong Eastern was sent packing in the 2024–25 PBA Commissioner's Cup quarterfinals because they were juggling games from one country to another.

And now, the Macau Black Knights are starting the conference with a 0–3 record.

But Macau's biggest problem is not really the league schedule or their other commitments. The EASL is now over, and they can concentrate on the Commissioner's Cup. The problem is their coach and his inability to lead his team to victory. Yes, he wanted to spam the four-point line, and if you think about it, looking for a low-percentage shot to create an edge in the league is a valid excuse to sack him. However, it's also his inability to use Tony Mitchell to his full strength, the sudden departure of Sam Deguara from their lineup, and his extremely tight substitution patterns that played a part in the team's downfall.

The thing about the four-point line is that if they spam it, then they'll need a top rebounder to battle for offensive boards. Yes, Mitchell is a high flyer with a valid PBA résumé, but he is also one of the league's smallest imports and isn't known primarily for his rebounding. And it's a shame that he can't be used wisely, because the problem with the PBA's unlimited height rule is that teams look for height rather than the intangibles an import brings.

If you look at some of the league's games in this conference, we have seen teams bench their imports because they are liabilities rather than assets. The Converge FiberXers are using Kylor Kelley more for his defense than his offense. San Miguel is okay with Marcus Lee's gameplay and numbers as long as he has chemistry with the team. Ginebra still went for Brownlee, who is a different beast from the other imports because of his height and because he can do the things other imports can't, which is to consistently score from anywhere on the court.

If you think about it, the Ginebra build should have been the build of Macau in the first place, because he is a do-it-all import playing for a team that isn't really stacked. Yes, the Black Knights have Damian Chongqui, Jenning Leung, Phoenix Shackelford, and Ramon Cao, but the rest of the team are either kept hidden by Kelly or aren't really that good. This is not a national team we are playing against, but merely a club team.

Of the 16 players they registered on their roster, five have remained on the DNP list. What's unreal is that only six of their players have played in all three games of the Black Knights. And what's even more insane is that they have three locals averaging 20 or more points, while their import is averaging just over 16 points and 9 rebounds.

So maybe Marcus Elliott is going to employ a winning strategy, since he's also no stranger to how Asian basketball works. Unlike in the NBA, the best way for a team to compete properly is with an immovable tank in the middle, with red-hot shooting wingmen scattered around the perimeter.

Also, maybe their next move is to search for an import who better suits their needs. Yes, I would still keep Mitchell, but only to throw off opposing teams after he figures out how to be effective. If we are looking at the big men in the league, again, an import like Deguara would be optimal to a certain point, so that an import like Mitchell can give the team a different look.

This is what Macau isn't using, because the PBA gave them the green light to have two imports, with only one allowed to play in a game. Of course, the Black Knights would still need to give teams a heads-up on which import they will be using, but this can derail a team's battle plan regardless.

While I don't want to root for a guest team, I hope they can at least be competitive. The reason there are no Asian imports in the PBA is that they overstayed their welcome by bringing nothing significant to PBA teams.

If they are just going to be in the PBA so they can be whipping boys, then I think the league should rethink their participation.