JUNE Mar Fajardo winning his fourth straight Most Valuable Player award in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) on Friday surprised no one.
In victory, Fajardo broke the records of Ramon Fernandez and Alvin Patrimonio, whose identical 4 MVPs didn’t come consecutively.
Even when the ongoing PBA Governors’ Cup had yet to start, Fajardo had already accumulated a margin way ahead of his closest MVP pursuers.
After the first two conferences, Fajardo was already virtually unreachable.
It helped that he had literally powered San Miguel Beer to back-to-back championships with his sterling performances. But Fajardo and his fellow Beermen had import issues in the Third Conference—SMB’s three imports all turning out to be mediocre, if not downright lemons.
As I keep saying, no team can win an import-laced conference without having an import that can play consistently during the entirety of a conference.
That is what we are seeing right now from Justin Brownlee of Barangay Ginebra and Allen Durham of Meralco.
In fact, they were so good last year when they practically carried their teams to the finals, with Brownlee hitting a buzzer-beating three that made Ginebra the champ following a Game 6 victory.
But in Friday’s Game 4, Brownlee missed a short jumper that would have sent the game to overtime, allowing Meralco to escape with an 85-83 win, courtesy of Durham’s marginal layup for a 2-2 count in their best-of-seven rematch.
With the win, Meralco has re-grabbed momentum as its back-to-back victories could augur well when it plays Ginebra again in tonight’s Game 5.
Surely, Fajardo will watch it on TV, from the comfort of his home. I won’t blame him if he has by his side, his MVP trophy glistening in its mighty splendor.
The good thing about Fajardo is, because of his uncanny skills not usually possessed by one so tall in a land not known to breed giants, he could scoop up more MVP awards since he is only 27 years old. In only 5 seasons, he has 4 MVPs already.
For his unbelievable height of 6-foot-10—the average Filipino height is only 5-foot-7—Fajardo is agile and a bit sprightly, too, traits not usually found in other Filipinos having heights like that.
Anyway, congrats again, June Mar. May you win more.