THOUGHTS | STATS OVER SENTIMENT

FROM ONE SPORTS

The sort of beef between Ginebra’s Tim Cone and Converge’s Delta Pineda got me thinking about the quotient system.

This isn’t just a PBA thing.

To give context, with ten seconds left and the FiberXers already cruising to a win, Delta Pineda told his boys to add more points. Juan Gomez de Liano attacked the basket and picked up his 32nd point. Yes, RJ Abarrientos also drove for a basket to match it, but even before that play, Tim Cone was already walking toward the Converge bench. He wasn’t going there to shake hands. He was going there to tell Pineda that what he instructed his players to do was wrong, and he made that clear.

In the post-game media scrum, Pineda simply explained that advancing to the next round depended on quotients. That’s it. And unlike Ginebra and Tim Cone, who have a history filled with championship runs, Converge is an up-and-coming team trying to make the right moves in a league dominated by the SMC vs MVP tug-of-war.

I’ve said this before in my blog, and I’ll say it again: I commend Converge for using Strong Group and the MPBL’s Pampanga Giant Lanterns to build their own ecosystem. It’s legal, it’s smart, and it doesn’t insult the intelligence of a typical Philippine basketball fan.

The MPBL may be a pro league, but most of its players still dream of making it to the PBA. I wouldn’t be shocked if Converge eventually sends their benchwarmers to Pampanga for conditioning so they can return to the PBA more developed. And honestly, if I were in the SMC or MVP groups, instead of treating Terrafirma, Blackwater, or Phoenix like their personal crotch, I’d create an MPBL affiliate team of my own. It makes way more sense.

Quotients have been used in all sorts of sports tournaments. Having support data is a legit tiebreaker. That’s why I always choose stats over “gut feel” when I make my best-of lists.

You can’t argue with numbers.

But can you, really?

Because honestly, I feel the PBA has been messing with this idea for a long time. And to be clear, I don’t solely blame the PBA, although they are part of the reason why things turned out this way.

For years, we’ve seen players suit up for farm teams, only to get harvested by the big-market squads. Then, once they get there, the big teams ask these supposed superstars to just be “regular” starters until the next farm-team gem appears and the cycle repeats. A few players have spoken out about it, and suddenly they’re punished. This pushes others to explore alternatives where the money is better, like international leagues.

And to be honest, if young players entering the PBA are only going to get restricted playing time, then they might as well go abroad. At least internationally, even if they are still basically slaves to their mother ballclubs, they’ll earn more money and get better recognition.

Fast-forward to 2035. Can we realistically call someone like Rhenz Abando, Thirdy Ravena, or even Kai Sotto one of the greatest to ever play in the PBA if we don’t even know whether they’ll play in the league, and knowing their overseas stats aren’t exactly that spectacular? Can we place Kiefer Ravena or Ray Parks in that same echelon when, despite their strong averages, their PBA careers didn’t even hit 100 games?

This is why, while the next ten names in the PBA’s Greatest Players list feel credible, the names after that start getting subjective. As unpopular as this will sound, once you get past Chito Loyzaga, most of the original pioneers might struggle to crack the list if the league suddenly decided to redo the entire thing. Danny Florencio may have scoring records and championships, but he never made a Mythical Team. Manny Paner won only one championship and made the Mythical Team once. The same goes for Lim Eng Beng.

And what about the next tier of pioneers? Beloved names like Yoyong Martirez never made the Mythical Team. Larry Mumar, Jimmy Mariano, and Rudy Kutch get pushed even farther into the background. The more modern players with limited championships or only one or two Mythical selections face the same issue. Gary David had a great career but never won a title. Gabe Norwood is an icon, but he only made the Mythical Team once, only had two championships, and hasn’t averaged double figures since his third season. And if you’re going to include Christian Standhardinger, then technically DaVonn Harp should be ahead of him.

Which brings me back to Delta Pineda. What he did in that game may be disrespectful to some, but for me, it’s simply… correct.

Just like the PBA’s Greatest Players list, the numbers are a proven metric. And just like a typical PBA season, if two teams have identical win-loss records, you don’t choose who advances based on who you like more. You choose the team with the better stats.

I’m willing to bet Cone would do the same thing if Gilas Pilipinas needed to secure a next-round slot.

Gut feel isn’t quantifiable. Respect should always be there, but at the end of the day, you can’t take away a team’s chance at an outright berth or survival just because the other side didn’t want to run up the score. Numbers matter. And it would suck for a team to lose a playoff slot simply because they had a huge lead in one game and, instead of padding it, chose to run their sets with less urgency, even fielding benchwarmers just to dribble away the clock and give them a semblance of playing time. And in situations like this, the numbers matter the most.