For the love of sports: Fair is the new in
Recently, the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) had yet another controversy as its commissioner, Chito Narvasa, went under fire for approving the Kia-San Miguel Beermen (SMB) trade, allowing Kia Picanto’s first round pick in the 2017 draft be exchanged for three SMB bench players. The PBA draft is an annual event that lets the twelve PBA teams draft players who wish to join the league. The drafting order is based upon the teams’ final rankings in the previous season. The lowest-ranking team gets to pick first, while the winning team picks last.
Simply putting it: the San Miguel Beermen negotiated with worst-team Kia to trade the latter’s privilege of first pick for three SMB role players, which Narvasa approved. This saw outrage from some of the teams in the league especially Manuel V. Pangilinan (MVP)-owned groups Talk N'Text (TNT), Meralco, and NLEX, seeing Narvasa’s decision as biased and in favor of San Miguel Corporation (SMC). This seemingly unfair trade says it’s time for Chito Narvasa to go. PBA cannot run without a commissioner, yes, but they might as well fall if they continue to have an incompetent commissioner. Frankly, PBA is better off without Narvasa. The decision is unfair for the other teams that have no star player, like Kia and Blackwater. Low-rank teams have always been given priority during draft day through the first pick, so that they may actually give a good fight in the next season.
Kia should have been given a fair trade. Kia did not say no as well, because from what I see, the Beermen gave Kia what seems to be a tempting and irresistible trade – one player in exchange for three: Big Man Jay-R Reyes, shooter Ronald Tubid, and fresh legs Rashawn McCarthy.
If this is not enough, SMB added their 2019 first round pick in their offer. This sounds fair, but fresh pick is always better than bench players if we come to weigh the value. Kia did not realize that they were trading a huge opportunity to pick a potential starter. The San Miguel Beermen capitalized this, drafting consensus no. 1 pick Christian Standhardinger for their team. Unfortunate for Narvasa, this controversial trade between Kia and SMB timed well with the renewal of his contract, leading almost two-thirds of the governors to vote against renewing his tenure. To approve or reject a commissioner’s tenure extension, a two-thirds vote (eight out of twelve) from the team governors is needed. Only seven governors voted to no longer renew Narvasa’s contract, falling short from the eight required to permanently remove him from his position. They represent the three MVP franchises TNT, Meralco, and NLEX, and four independent teams Phoenix, Blackwater, Rain or Shine, and Alaska. The remaining five teams – Beermen, Ginebra, Star, Kia, and Globalport – voted in favor of Narvasa. With this, Narvasa decided to fight for the proper procedure regarding the extension of his tenure. A commissioner’s contract is deemed expired every end of the season and two-thirds vote is needed for reappointment. The seven teams’ final move then lies with letting his contract expire, rather than vote to oust him since he won’t get the full eight votes for his reappointment anyway. As Narvasa’s stay is still disputed, Rickie Santos will take over as officer-in-charge. Ever since he started as commissioner, Chito Narvasa has been the center of numerous controversies. We might as well call this Kia-SMB trade as the tipping point. Majority of the team governors have lost confidence in him, and so have we. And as it appears that Chito Narvasa is on his way out for good, it’s starting to look a lot like Christmas for PBA fans.