San Miguel heart June Mar Fajardo goes up towards NorthPort’s Troy Rike. PBA IMAGES
Leo Austria admits to having a sense of vacancy heading into his ninth yr as coach of San Miguel Beer, because the previous two seasons haven’t been that rewarding despite the fact that he is aware of that his Beermen have put their greatest foot ahead every time.
“There are a number of components which harm our probabilities,” stated Austria, who received titles in every of his first six seasons with San Miguel and got here inside a jewel wanting a Grand Slam twice.
These components received’t matter this season.
“I really feel that we’re higher ready to go to battle this time, in comparison with the final two seasons due to the pandemic,” he stated.
San Miguel shall be chasing a title it held onto with vise-like tightness not too way back, and he believes that the others within the 12-team discipline nonetheless see his Beermen as a harmful menace to reclaim their throne.
“Folks look to us as favorites and for us, that’s a problem,” he stated. “However we welcome the problem, as a result of we’ve had coaching camp like we’ve by no means had earlier than, so we had been in a position to lastly obtain that chemistry.”
They received’t need for challengers this convention: TNT is the defending champion of the Philippine Cup whereas Barangay Ginebra is coming off a championship within the Governors’ Cup and shall be parading a more healthy unit this season. However Austria ranks his crew among the many prime 4, a listing that features the workforce he’s particularly maintaining a tally of.
“Magnolia,” Austria stated. “They’re an entire workforce.”
San Miguel received the Philippine Cup 5 straight seasons earlier than relinquishing it in 2020 within the Angeles bubble. And final season, San Miguel didn’t make it again to the Finals.
‘I’ll bounce again’
Austria believes that there’s one huge—a large, 6-foot-10—cause why this Philippine Cup shall be completely different from the final two and will look strikingly just like the earlier 5.
“He informed me: ‘babawi ako, coach’ (I’ll bounce again),” Austria stated, referring to a dialog he had with June Mar Fajardo throughout camp as they talked concerning the event that unfurls on Sunday to formally take the lid off of the PBA’s forty seventh Season at Sensible Araneta Coliseum.
“That [conversation with Fajardo] simply provides me a number of confidence,” Austria stated. “And I noticed it in him that he’s in much better form than he was final season when he returned from an harm. He’s working very onerous.”
Fajardo additionally received the Most Invaluable Participant award six straight seasons earlier than that nasty shin harm stored him out from competing for a seventh.
“Additionally, his focus is there already, not like final season when one thing about his restoration [from the shin injury] tousled his confidence and after that, he misplaced his mother.”
Does he nonetheless have the league’s most dominant participant coming into the season?
“If we encompass him with the best gamers, sure,” he stated. “And that’s our job within the teaching employees.”
They’ve carried out job to this point, stacking the roster up and down with skills who’re coming collectively on the proper time.
“We’re simply attempting to learn to belief one another, study to move the ball to one another,” veteran guard Chris Ross stated throughout the league’s Media Day at Novotel in Cubao, Quezon Metropolis. “It’s been fairly good these days. After we misplaced the final convention, we took per week off after which went again to apply. We’ve had a number of time to essentially apply collectively.”
Not defending a title once more may take some stress off Austria and his costs beginning Sunday, however the goal has remained the identical since he began calling the pictures.
“The goal is at all times to win a championship,” Austria stated with a smile. “And this workforce is aware of how one can win.”
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