PBA Analysis: San Miguel is in a BIG BIG trouble!

One of the beauties of the modern brand of basketball is that it simplifies it. Teams need spacing for their offense and versatility on defense. 

This simple logic has been violated by the San Miguel Beermen with their decision of trading Arwind Santos for Vic Manuel.

And we saw the effect on their first game in this tournament. NLEX Road Warriors blasted them into a 12-points defeat.

NLEX, a team that does not have a roster comparable to San Miguel. I mean, the second 5 of San Miguel could even be better than that of Northport.

What happened?

San Miguel struggled from beyond the arc, shooting 3/21. And it is quite ironic that Arwind Santos had a successful debut for Northport, and he delivered a bunch of three-pointers to keep their team on the game against Alaska Aces.

Vic Manuel had a fine debut with his 17 points, 7/12 FG, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 turnovers and 1 block. But, he was -7 in terms of plus/minus. 

It means that San Miguel was outscored by seven points when the Muscle Man was on the court. Those numbers are telling.

Fajardo also has a fine showing but all of their other key players struggled. And if you witness the game, you should have observed the tightness of the spacing in the painted area.

This is the reason why I have San Miguel outside of my top 5 in my power ranking.