PBA Free Agency: Phoenix should give the bags to Ricci Rivero?

"Nilibing talaga kami." We were really buried. That was rookie head coach LA Tenorio's blunt, Halloween-night assessment after his top-seeded Magnolia Hotshots were unceremoniously swept 3-0 by the defending champion TNT Tropang Giga. Tenorio likened the brutal quarterfinal exit to a big brother bullying a little brother, a nod to the tactical mastery of his mentor Chot Reyes and the sheer dominance of Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. Magnolia had just survived the "group of death" by winning six straight games, only to be steamrolled by an average losing margin of 17.0 points in the playoffs, culminating in a 98-87 Game 3 defeat. But the autopsy of Magnolia's season should not just focus on TNT's brilliance; it needs to zoom in on a crippling organizational flaw: Magnolia's unwillingness to swing a massive, paradigm-shifting trade for top-tier talent.

If you look at the transaction log during Tenorio's brief tenure, the Hotshots actively retooled to inject youth and versatility, but they merely nibbled at the margins instead of taking a massive bite

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. In one of his earliest moves, Magnolia acquired Javi Gomez de Liaño from the Terrafirma Dyip in exchange for Jerrick Ahanmisi and a 2025 second-round draft pick. Shortly after, they traded away reliable three-and-D veteran Aris Dionisio to Titan Ultra to land rookie Chris Koon just five games into his professional career. They also cleared roster space by shipping Joseph Eriobu to Terrafirma for a distant Season 52 second-round draft pick. While they successfully acquired the rights to star forward Arvin Tolentino via a deal with Titan Ultra, owning rights does not grab rebounds or hit corner threes in a playoff bloodbath against TNT.

The reality on the hardwood is glaring. Right now, Gomez de Liaño and Koon are not even significant parts of Tenorio's rotation. They are developmental pieces on a veteran-heavy roster that desperately needed immediate, starting-caliber firepower to hang with the league's elite heavyweights. You cannot beat a finely tuned machine like TNT—a team completely inspired playing alongside a three-time Best Import—by standing pat with a good-not-great core and shuffling deck chairs with fringe youth.

Tenorio consoled his squad by calling it a "good and not bad first year," emphasizing the need to learn and improve. But if Tenorio is going to keep this job and actually push Magnolia over the championship hump, the mandate is clear. The era of conservative, marginal retooling has to end. It should be fully expected of him and the Magnolia front office to push their chips to the center of the table this offseason and execute a blockbuster trade for a legitimate, starting-level talent who can actually change the geometry of the floor.

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