Fixing Barangay Ginebra's Twin Towers

Greg Slaughter. Japeth Aguilar. There was a time when one, then the other, was considered the best big man prospect in the Philippines.

For Slaughter, it was his size and heft combined with good basic basketball skills that propelled him to the top. For Aguilar, it was his preposterous length and the eye-popping athleticism (which was evident, even amongst NBA D-Leaguers) that made him stand out.

Slaughter and Aguilar have physical gifts that most of their PBA colleagues don’t have. It’s not unfair to say that the expectations for both are that they would dominate their competition every night.

Japeth Aguilar: Monster on the loose?

27 points, 8 rebounds 2 steals and 1 block.

That could easily be the stat line of a PBA import. Except that it's the stat line of one Japeth Aguilar, a seldom used Gilas player in the last FIBA-Asia Championships and former #1 PBA draft pick who demanded a trade so he could play for the national team.

Aguilar highlighted his dominant performance with a tomahawk dunk over former Gilas teammate Jason Ballesteros, serving notice to the PBA that he was certainly back with a vengeance.

More importantly, he led Talk N Text to a 98-80 win over sister team Meralco, despite the absence of three key players, Jimmy Alapag, Ranidel de Ocampo and Kelly Williams.


More on this story here.