The Top 5 Centers of the #PBA2016 so far

June Mar Fajardo leads an amazing cast of big men who are among the PBA's finest.
(images by Paul Ryan Tan/Marlon Bernabe/Sports5)

Sometimes I get the feeling that the PBA is no longer the small man or even wingman’s league. Sure, we’ve always had outstanding big men like Ramon Fernandez, Alvin Patrimonio, Jerry Codiñera, Dennis Espino, and Asi Taulava, but having the league completely dominated by frontliners like June Mar Fajardo and Greg Slaughter is another thing altogether. Seeing guys like JMF, Gregzilla, and Raymond Almazan put up double-doubles left and right just opens my eyes to the reality that the game really has completely changed.

Without further ado, here they are – the top five centers of the 2015-2016 PBA season:

*This is based on the Player Efficiency ratings as calculated by PBA-Online.net. Stats are accurate as of February 7, 2016.

The Top 5 Centers of #PBA2015

The PBA has long been dominated by guards. From 2006-2012, all but one season MVP were guards (James Yap - twice, Willie Miller, Jayjay Helterbrand, Jimmy Alapag, and Mark Caguioa). Kelly Williams was the only exception, bagging the season MVP in 2008. In the past three seasons, however, big men have ruled, what with Arwind Santos being MVP in 2013 and teammate June Mar Fajardo bagging the prized plum back-to-back in 2014 and 2015. Aside from the 6’10 Cebuano, however, other marquee slotmen continue to put their stamp on the league, and we’ll list down the best of ‘em here.

Without further ado, here they are – the top five centers of the 2014-2015 PBA season:

*This is based on the Player Efficiency ratings as calculated by PBA-Online.net.

#PBA2015: The Top 10 Big Men Right Now

The Philippines has always been known as a country that produces great guards. Whether it’s in the distant or recent past, it’s clear that guards have really dictated and dominated the landscape of Philippine basketball. In recent times, however, the balance of power has seemingly shifted, what with the entry of guys like June Mar Fajardo and Greg Slaughter, both hulking slotmen who can stamp their class on a game at will. 

In this piece, I will take a look at the top ten big men right now in the current PBA season. Instead of making distinctions between centers and power forwards, I just opted to use the term big men since many of the guys below alternate between the two positions anyway.

These are based exclusively on the Player Efficiency Ratings as calculated by PBA-Online.net, and the stats are accurate as of the end of the 2015 Commissioner’s Cup. 

Five Impact Players So Far in the Current PBA Season

One glance at the current PBA standings will reveal an interesting and surprising fact — Alaska is the league’s best team right now. And the biggest reason for that? Calvin Abueva. 

We’ll talk about him here, of course, but he’s not the only one who’s made a really big impact on his team early this season. In this particular post, we’ll look at five guys who’ve been able to stamp their class on their respective teams and, to some degree, helped their squads become competitive in the race for spots in the second round of the 2014-2015 Philippine Cup.

Five big impact players so far this season.

The Top Five #PBA2015 Centers Right Now

Centers are ruling the 2014-2015 Philippine Cup, with the top three slotmen among the five most efficient players in the league. June Mar Fajardo just dropped a huge game, ditto with Asi Taulava, and Greg Slaughter has been consistently great. Who are the other two, though? Well, you might be surprised.

Too many good big men in the PBA right now.

Without further ado, here they are – the top five centers of the 2014-2015 PBA season as of November 21, 2014 (as always, this is based on the Player Efficiency ratings as calculated by PBA-Online.net):

My 2013-2014 PBA All-Rookie Teams

Who would you pick as the top five rookies of the season?

With four teams having already ended their season (as of this writing) and only six clubs remaining to dispute the Governors’ Cup, I think the time is ripe to begin talking about some of the end-of-season awards. I already started this in my previous post about Greg Slaughter’s being the runaway Rookie of the Year and about how he should also be a member of one of the Mythical Five teams.

In this particular post, I’ll talk about even more of the rookies and try to build two PBA All-Rookie Teams. For the record, the PBA itself doesn’t announce two All-Rookie Teams. There really is just one, but I think it would be pretty fun to make a second team especially for this batch of rookies because so many of them have had shining moments this past season.

There are only a couple of guidelines to consider here:

1) A player named to any of the following teams must be a bona fide rookie in the 2013-2014 season.

2) Each team is composed of one center, two forwards, and two guards. Given this particular limitation, I will take the liberty to judge whether certain players can play multiple positions or not.