Early Season PBA Hot Take! At least one of SMB, Ginebra and Magnolia will not win a championship

(c) PBA Media Bureau

As expected, Al Francis Chua will be awarded as the executive of the year by the PBA Press Corps. That is because, for the first time in the history of the league, the three franchises under the San Miguel Corporation managed to get one championship each in a season.

San Miguel Beermen are still the barometer in the Philippine Cup. Brgy. Ginebra San Miguel notched the Commissioner's Cup. And Magnolia Hotshots succeeded in stealing the Governors Cup crown from Ginebra.


This achievement may not happen again anytime soon.

Why?

Ginebra and San Miguel are way more powerful
Coach Chito Victolero deserved the Coach of the Year plum for 2018 because he managed to steal one of the championships from their older brothers. I will not bet that he can do that again because they decided to retain the same line-up which is way less-talented that what Ginebra and San Miguel have.

Ginebra and San Miguel's line-up are way much better than the entire the league. If you think about it, even if the 10 other franchises pool their rosters and create an 8-man core, the core of Ginebra and San Miguel can still go toe to toe with it.

I am not that high on the addition of Terrence Romeo to San Miguel but they can easily trade him for better fits if necessary.

I am more intrigued about Ginebra because coach Tim did not make a big change, sending a message that he is confident about his line-up's ability to win a grand slam.

Better imports are on the way
The factor of good imports can really shake-up the latter two conferences. We saw that with how perfect was Romeo Travis for Magnolia and Mike Harris for Alaska. One team that is hot in my eyes, that can steal one of the latter two crowns by choosing the right import, is NLEX.

I believe the NLEX core of JP Erram, Larry Fonacier, Kevin Alas and Kiefer Ravena can be magnified by an excellent import. NLEX has the frontline that will not easily crumble against San Miguel and Ginebra.

Same goes for Rain or Shine and Northport. The frontline is the most critical area that the non-SMC teams should fixed if they want a real chance of winning a championship this year.