Santos, Cabagnot and Ross; will SMB let them retire as Beermen? - 2020 PBA Quarantine Season Primer

IATF already gave the green light to the PBA to resume practice. Unfortunately, that is still not an assurance that they will let the league return to play. Although, it is not bad to look forward. So, here is another article series that will provide the biggest question for each team as a primer for the possible return of the league.

Today, we will focus on the San Miguel Beermen. The easy question to ask here is if Junemar Fajardo should try to push for a return this season. It seems like we do not need to talk about that already because according to his recent interviews, Fajardo is not planning to play this year.

So, I think the next best possible discussion is how the Beermen will handle the future of Arwind Santos, Alex Cabagnot and Chris Ross. All of them are 35 years old or older. So, they are much closer to the end of their career. So, how will the management handle them?

Knowing that they have the name recognition, the management can still use them to trade for much younger superstars.

That is the reason why I was not shocked when Marcio and Arwind were included in the rumor trade package for CJ Perez.

Now, they will be entering a conference without Fajardo. They are still a loaded team but this could be the perfect test for the management to see if the current skill-level of Arwind, Alex and Chris are still high enough that they will consider holding them up to their retirement.

In the 2010s, Alex, Chris and Arwind were part of the most popular five-man lineup in the league. Some analysts even consider that five as a contender for the best starting-five ever in the history of the PBA.

So, will San Miguel let all of those five retire as a Beermen? The upcoming conference could tell us a lot.