Petron’s Curse

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(This is a first of many articles that involves… The Curse)

The Petron Blaze Boosters/San Miguel Beermen aside from being perennial title contenders are extremely ferocious traders.

Often Petron gives out perfectly-executed deals but most of the time they flesh out imbalanced moves. A lot of their trades are often controversial… and they often involve up and coming stars.

Sometimes however, fate would find ways to make them pay.

Read on.

Jay Washington:
This is not an imba trade… now. But what if Talk N Text messed up with their selection? The Tropa traded durable starter Jay Washington to San Miguel in exchange for their third overall pick in the 2008 PBA Draft which turned out to be Jayson Castro. Lucky for TNT they got Castro. While Washington has been a MVP contender, he has been missing in action for almost a year now because of injury.

Arwind Santos:
This was a highly-imbalanced trade because Santos was picked up for Marc Pingris and Ken Bono but then Pingris was sent to Purefoods for draft picks that Air21 eventually gave up to other teams. I think the only curse Arwind Santos acquired with Petron is the MVP snub. Will this be the year Arwind wins the MVP trophy? I don’t think so.

Alex Cabagnot and Joseph Yeo:
In separate deals the Beermen managed to snag these two former Sta. Lucia and Coca-Cola stars: Cabagnot from Air21 for Mike Cortez and Yeo from Sta. Lucia for Bonbon Custodio. On paper these trades look nice but SMB had a lot of weapons compared to the teams they traded with. There’s no curse for SMB on these trades because almost everyone thought these trades were fair.

Nonoy Baclao, Rabeh Al-Hussaini, and Rey Guevarra:
These guys were the first three choices by Air21 in the 2010 PBA Draft. Baclao and Rabeh were making waves and San Miguel wants these three on their side. Now Commissioner Chito Salud made San Miguel work to get these guys (at the beginning of the trade it was Seigle, Mick Pennisi, and Joseph Yeo) and the results of the trade ended with the Beermen giving up Dondon Hontiveros, Dorian Pena, Paul Artadi, and Danny Seigle. San Miguel bungled this trade for three reasons. Firstly, Baclao and Guevarra were never given enough playing time to develop. Secondly, Rabeh Al-Hussaini spent most of his SMB/Petron tenure on the injured list. And finally, these four broke out in a major way (especially Danny Seigle) when they were given the minutes. In the end, San Miguel/Petron gave up four big-time veterans for a couple of struggling kids.

Chris Lutz and Dondon Hontiveros:
Two conferences after the trade that sent Hontiveros to Air21 (now Barako Bull), the then-Smart-Gilas swingman was sent back to SMB/Petron with Carlo Sharma and the rights to select the third pick overall for Sunday Salvacion, Mick Pennisi, a future draft pick, and the rights to select the eighth pick overall… which turned out to be Allein Maliksi. Now fans had a lot of opinions as to why the Blaze Boosters got the third pick… which turned out to be Chris Lutz, a Smart-Gilas mainstay. Now Hontiveros was injured during his first game and Lutz has had issues maintaining his health, missing 14 of Petron’s 32 games. Worse, Pennisi was the guy responsible in eliminating Petron by feigning doom when Petron import Will McDonald launched a ball in his head.

Oh yeah… and here are a bit of thought bullets to further my point:

Boybits Victoria:
Dropped to assistant coach status when everyone thought he still can play.

Dale Singson:
He was doing so well for Shell and his growth got messed up when he joined the Beermen.

Christian Calaguio:
He relished the reserve role too much that when talent after talent appeared, his pecking order became farther and farther.

Romel Adducul:
Moving to San Miguel was the worst way for Adducul to follow up a respectable career in Ginebra.

Enrico Villanueva:
Taking him out of Red Bull started the downfall his career is experiencing right now.

Lordy Tugade:
His game worked at the start but as the talents increased his stock lowered.

Larry Fonacier:
It took a trade to Alaska to bring back the Baby-Faced Assassin’s credibility.

And of course, they wasted a lot of rookie selections as well like when they drafted Sam Eman to be a benchwarmer and James Sena who they never really gave any chance and had to work his ass off before getting a break with the Shopinas Clickers (now known as Air21 Express)

So now we have Marcio Lassiter donning the Petron Blaze Booster uniform. I expect Lassiter to occupy the small forward as what he has done with Powerade. One problem he needs to take on is his all-around game. Those points, rebounds, and assists might go down since this is Arwind Santos’ bread and butter.

It’s funny because the reason why Petron opted to choose Lutz is because Lassiter’s game would clash with Arwind Santos.

Hopefully the curse won’t happen for Lassiter.

For every Arwind, Jay-Wash, Cabagnot, and Yeo are a bunch of stars that faded out.

Game over.