CHANCES of an independent team winning a championship in the Philippine Basketball Association has been reduced from slim to none.
Over the past decade, Rain or Shine was the only “non-cartel” team to win a PBA crown, which happened during the 2016 Commissioner’s Cup when the squad was handled by head coach Yeng Guiao.
So many things happened over the last 10 years.
Guiao left Rain or Shine by the end of 2016 season to assume a bigger responsibility as general manager and head coach of the NLEX Road Warriors until 2022 before he returned to the Elasto Painters fold as head coach.
But even then, no other independent squad was able to win a championship or manage to make it at least in the finals of the PBA, except Bay Area, a Hong Kong-based team and a guest ball club, which made it all the way to the championship round before losing to eventual titlist Barangay Ginebra in an epic seven-game series in the 2023 Commissioner’s Cup.
Champions over the last 10 years would either come from San Miguel Corporation-owned squads — San Miguel Beer, Ginebra and Magnolia — or from the MVP Group of Companies — TNT and Meralco.
The Beermen had won nine championships over the past decade, reasserting its dominance in Asia’s pioneering professional basketball league. San Miguel, the remaining original member in the 51-year-old league, is the winningest franchise in the PBA with a total of 31 titles.
Ginebra had collected seven titles since Tim Cone took over as head coach and had its own success in the last 10 years.
Magnolia, probably the odd team in the SMC stable, had only won a championship since Cone left the squad and moved on to handle the league’s most popular ball club. Prior to joining Ginebra, the American mentor completed his second grand slam in 2014 and led the old Purefoods franchise to five titles in just four years.
Over at the MVP Group, NLEX was the only team that has yet to win a PBA crown since it joined the PBA in 2014.
MVP’s flagship squad, TNT, only started winning when Chot Reyes came out of coaching retirement and led the Tropang Giga to a championship during the pandemic era in the 2021 Philippine Cup.
Now known as the Tropang 5G, the team had won three more times under Reyes, the most decorated coach of the franchise, who won seven of 11 titles with the MVP stable.
Meralco won its first and only title so far in 2024 Philippine Cup after pulling off an upset in their championship series against the Beermen.
In a 10-year stretch were teams belonging to giant conglomerates were dominating the PBA,a mid-level independent squad can consider itselflucky if it cracks the semifinal round — and only few teams outside of the MVP Group and San Miguel Corporation were able to do so.
Rain or Shine under Guiao was able to do it five times since he returned to the Elasto Painters fold and they are currently making another deep run.
It has proven itself to be the gold standard among independent teams as other squads such as Converge, Phoenix, Terrafirma, Titan Ultra and Blackwater were not able to reach the final four.
If you are a serious basketball fan rooting for an underdog, not just in terms of talent, but also the structure of the organization and company bankrolling the team, then there’s every reason to cheer for Rain or Shine.
Its team is fast, entertaining and displaying a no-quit attitude. The team was built from the ground up using the Rookie Draft as investment to tinker its roster and let the players grow altogether.
Current players of Rain or Shine are now starting to mature and ready to take their game to the next level and the period of peaking is beginning to show.
Adrian Nocum’s high-wire act had been drawing comparisons to some of the league’s all-time electrifying players like Samboy Lim and Vergel Meneses, while Andrei Caracut is loved and adored by many not just for his playmaking skills but his social media impact.
There may be no marquee player on the team but you’re going to admire the effort and hustle of seasoned players like Jhonard Clarito and rookies like Christian Manaytay, Josh David and Deo Cuajao and the other role players like Anton Asistio, Leonard Santillan and even the tried and tested Beau Belga.
Of course, the team’s dancing import was equally entertaining, Jaylen Johnson.
About half of the team were sidelined by injuries — Stanley Pringle, Keith Datu, Luis Villegas, Jun Roque and Felix Pangilinan Lemmeti — yet the team’s next-man-up mentality had kept the squad in deep hunt for a championship appearance.
Truly, there are more reasons to love the Elasto Painters.
