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Who is Your Memory Hero?

Philippine Basketball Association

Dev Almada March 23, 2020

The year was 2007, my freshman year in high school. A fellow junkie and friend of mine introduced me to the PBA. We had a bro pact to both follow the then Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants (now Magnolia Hotshots) in all of their '07 Philippine Cup glory.

To be a fan of Purefoods back then means you are mad crazy about a player named James Yap. And that was the case for my friend. However, none could have gotten my attention better than budding Power Forward and Next Face of the Franchise (according to my dainty knowledge of the league back then), Jean Marc Pingris, Jr. or better known as Ping.

Coming in hot for his season #3 (drafted 3rd overall in the 2004 draft just behind his buddy James Yap), the guy is a straight up hustler, grabbing every boards, running the floor, collecting garbage, and is the next leading scorer for the team. The guy is a beast out there.

But, that notion changed some 10 years after, especially when this love for the game of mine became an obsession with stats, charts, and numbers. I found out that the guy was not 2nd leading scorer for the team (averaging 8.4 per game and not even close to 6th man PJ Simon's 13.4), not even the leading rebounder (8.1 and not even close to Kerby Raymundo's 9.2).

There was even debate in my close circle that Ping wasn't even part of the starting line-up for the team back in '07 and it was rather Rey Evangelista who started for the Giants. Which made me wonder if I was inside a sort of a Mandela Effect bubble (False Memory, for starters) or if it was even already a thing back then. Because I am pretty sure I watched the guy torch everyone in his way, which was also the primary reason for me screaming at the top of my lungs every weekend evenings while my parents try to tone me down with a scream of their own (and tsinelas).

The team rose up to 1st-seed come playoffs time with a stunning 12-6 record only to capitulate to the Kelly Williams-led Sta. Lucia Realtors in a crazy 7-game PBA Finals series by the end of the conference. Ping was then shipped to the Magnolia Beverage Masters (now San Miguel Beermen) in exchange for Enrico Villanueva a conference after.

Ping was shipped back to the Purefoods franchise some years later (then now known as B-Meg Llamados) and never looked back ever since.

Ping may have failed to wow us statistically back in '07, but he surely won our hearts in '13 when Gilas Pilipinas torched longtime FIBA Asia rivals in South Korea. The tenacity, the desire, the focus, and the heart represented all of that is us Filipinos. Today, Marc together with PJ Simon continue to wave the franchise banner as veterans to the new generation players of the Magnolia Hotshots.

9x PBA Champ, 15x PBA All-Star, 3x PBA DPOY, 8x All-Defense, PBA 40 Greatest, SEAGames Gold Medalist, 2x FIBA Asia Silver Medalist, and the monicker "Pinoy Sakuragi". Ping not only made certain he was the next face of the Purefoods franchise but made sure he also is the face of the Men's Basketball National Team.

I mean "Pinoy Sakuragi"? Who could even dare top that?

Feature Content concept from BASKETBALL (AND OTHER THINGS) by Shea Serrano Featured Photo grabbed from Glenn Michael Tan via Purefoods Basketball Portal (https://www.purefoodsbasketball.com/)