MANILA – Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Kings’ Justin Brownlee and San Miguel Beermen’s June Mar Fajardo have been named Best Import and Best Player of the Conference, respectively, but they wanted the bigger award – the PBA Commissioner’s Cup title.
Brownlee, a first-time winner of the Best Import award after four stints, said that while he is happy to finally snatch the individual plum, he will be much happier if he helps Kings hoist its second conference title.
“It’s a great accomplishment for myself. It’s prestige this league has and the great imports that have played in this league,” said Brownlee, who placed second three times in his previous stints.
“But I don’t wanna get caught up into that. Of course, it’s great, but the task at hand is trying to win the championship,” added Brownlee, who has two PBA Governor’s Cup titles tucked under his belt.
Brownlee emerged as No. 1 in terms of statistics with 539 and the runaway winner as choices of both media (445) and the PBA (150). He did win the players’ vote but by a close margin against Beermen’s Renaldo Balkman 75-68.
Fajardo has the same sentiment despite him extending his league-best seventh BPC award aside from attaining another milestone by entering the league’s 5,000 points club.
“Blessed ako and thankful ako na nanalo ako ng BPC. Thankful ako kay God, thankful ako sa teammates ko, sa coaching staff, credit ko sa kanila iyon kasi hindi ko naman iyon magagawa kung hindi dahil sa kanila,” said the 28-year-old Fajardo.
“Kung nanalo sana kami, masaya,” he added. “Kailangan naming manalo next game kasi mahirap na. Kailangan talaga pagsikapan kunin iyon kasi hindi nila ibibigay sa amin iyon.”
Fajardo was the runaway winner in the stats race and drew the nod of the media, his fellow players and the PBA Commissioner’s Office for a total of 1,153 points. Alaska Aces’ Vic Manuel was the runner-up with 766 points./PN
