From GILASable to Gilas Able: Raymond Almazan

It's good to be right.

Last December 4, this blogger named Rain Or Shine's Raymond Almazan as one of the GILASables (players who should be accorded an invite to the Gilas 4.0 pool). (Read the article here)

Last Monday, Almazan’s game long brilliance was the key to the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters cruising past the suddenly toothless Talk ‘N Test Tropang Texters to make their way into the seminfinal round. Almazan shone with 15 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocked shots while making life extremely difficult for the Texters’ duo of promising big men Moala Tautuua and Troy Rosario (both, incidentally, are part of the Gilas pool)

After the game, this happened.

WHAT THIS MEANS

Bye-bye, Ian Sangalang. He was one of the most surprising picks made by Tab Baldwin, seeing as he was coming off an injury-filled year and had not played in a long while. But his height (always a big factor when talking about international basketball), his varied skill set and his potential was enough for Baldwin to take a gamble.

Living Without The Lee-thal Weapon

Photo courtesy of interaksyon.com

When Paul Lee was discovered to have a tear in his meniscus and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), the reverberations of that injury was felt not just by his PBA team, the Rain Or Shine Elasto Painters, but also by the Gilas national team.

Fortunately for Gilas, this injury will not have a major impact in their preparations for next year’s Olympic qualifiers. Unfortunately for the Elasto Painters, this injury will define their campaign in the Smart Bro PBA Philippine Cup.

Here are the four aspects where the Elasto Painters will feel Lee’s absence:

Playmaking

Paul Lee is, in simple words, a playmaker. He makes good things happen, whether with good passing, strong drives to the rim, kick outs to open shooters, hitting open shots to keep the defenses honest, or controlling the tempo of the game to better suit the Rain Or Shine game plan.

He’s the focal point and engine of the Rain or Shine offense, which means that when Paul Lee is in the zone, he can almost singlehandedly destroy opposing defenses.

The fact that he can do it in so many ways, not just by scoring a ton, makes him especially hard to replace. Just consider his stats from last year’s PBA season: 15.5ppg, 4.5rpg, and 3.3 apg. Those are major numbers for someone who plays just 27 minutes a game.

Ranking The PBA Teams: The Teams At The Top

In the last of our three part series, we’ll review the PBA teams and rank them according to the strengths of their lineup.

(Missed #12-#9? Go here. For #8-#5, go here.)

Here are the teams at  #4 to #1.

#4 ALASKA ACES

Roster

Name	Position
Chris Banchero	G
Cyrus Baguio	G/F
Vic Manuel	F
Sonny Thoss	F/C
Calvin Abueva	F
Nonoy Baclao	F/C
Marion Magat	C
Rome de la Rosa	G/F
Chris Exciminiano	G
Dondon Hontiveros	G/F
Eric Menk	F/C
RJ Jazul	G
Tony de la Cruz	F
JV Casio	G
Kevin Racal	F

Analysis: The Alaska Aces is the team that proves that the whole can be worth so much more than the sum of its parts. On paper, they shouldn’t be able to beat teams like the Gin Kings or the Hotshots but they do. There is no clear cut superstar on their roster but somehow, the tenacity of Calvin Abueva, the smarts of JV Casio, the shooting of Dondon Hontiveros, the guile of Cyrus Baguio, the versatile skill set of Vic Manuel, the leadership of Tony de la Cruz and the inside presence of Sonny Thoss make them one of the harder teams to create a game plan for. Which means that on any given day, any of those players mentioned above may be the one who beats you.