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Game changer: How the Abarrientos era in Alaska took off

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Rey Joble

<p>Basketball fans are most likely familiar with the story of how Michael Jordan ended up with the Chicago Bulls where he started his greatness in the NBA.</p><p>Jordan was passed up by 2 other teams — the Houston Rockets who drafted 7-foot slotman Hakeem Olajuwon as the top overall pick and the Portland Trailblazers who picked another big man, 7-foot-3 Sam Bowie, as the No.2 selection.</p><p>In a game where big men were given much importance, the Rockets and the Blazers had no idea the kind of player they were passing up on.</p><p>Such case was similar to Alaska during the 1993 PBA Rookie Draft when the team was set to pick 3rd overall behind new team Sta. Lucia and 7-Up.</p><p>The Realtors, who just acquired the Great Taste franchise, selected Jun Limpot, a talented big man who can play from inside and out, drive to the basket and carry the ball like an ordinary guard.</p><p>7-Up, on the other hand, took the next best big man in Vic Pablo, another stretch big.</p><p>Admittedly, Alaska coach Tim Cone was setting his sights on either Limpot and Pablo.</p><p>In the past 2 years of the Rookie Draft, Alaska picked No.1 and No.2 respectively, picking 6-foot-7 Alex Araneta in 1991 and Bong Solomon the next year.</p><p>Those two big men, however, did not turn out to be impact players and Alaska was hoping to bring in somebody who can make a splash and 1993 was the best year to do that. </p><p>&quot;We wanted a big man, too. No doubt about it. Jun Limpot was the plum of that draft. Everybody wanted Jun. I mean, he was a special big man and big men were rare commodities in the PBA. Everybody wanted Jun,&quot; said Cone.</p><p>&quot;And then, Vic Pablo was the No.2 pick. He was another intermediate big. There was a lot of desire for Vic Pablo. But we knew that Jun was out of reach. We knew that they would take Vic and there&#x27;s only one other guy that we should take and that was Johnny.&quot;</p><blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/tv/CaBU63UgtpA/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14" style="background:#FFF;border:0;border-radius:3px;box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15);margin:1px;max-width:540px;min-width:326px;padding:0;width:calc(100% - 2px)"><div style="padding:16px"><div style="display:flex;flex-direction:row;align-items:center"><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;flex-grow:0;height:40px;margin-right:14px;width:40px"> </div><div style="display:flex;flex-direction:column;flex-grow:1;justify-content:center"><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;margin-bottom:6px;width:100px"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;width:60px"> 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style="background-color:#F4F4F4;flex-grow:0;height:12px;width:16px;transform:translateY(-4px)"> </div><div style="width:0;height:0;border-top:8px solid #F4F4F4;border-left:8px solid transparent;transform:translateY(-4px) translateX(8px)"> </div></div></div><div style="display:flex;flex-direction:column;flex-grow:1;justify-content:center;margin-bottom:24px"><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;margin-bottom:6px;width:224px"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;width:144px"> </div></div><div style="color:#c9c8cd;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:17px;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:8px;overflow:hidden;padding:8px 0 7px;text-align:center;text-overflow:ellipsis;white-space:nowrap"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/tv/CaBU63UgtpA/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style="color:#c9c8cd;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:17px;text-decoration:none" target="_blank">A post shared by Alaska Aces (@alaska_aces)</a></div></div></blockquote><div><script async="" src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div><p>Limpot, Pablo and Abarrientos were teammates on the national squad that won the gold medal at the Southeast Asian Games in Manila in 1991. They were the top 3 talented players in the cast.</p><p>With Limpot and Pablo already taken, Alaska took the next best available talent in Abarrientos.</p><p>Taking in a 5-foot-7 guard as the next franchise player was a risk and it would need a lot of convincing to do.</p><p>&quot;We were kinda left with Johnny. We were not trying to pursue Johnny ahead of everybody. He kinda fell into our laps,&quot; said Cone. &quot;Kinda like Michael Jordan if I&#x27;m going to use it as a comparison. Hakeem Olajuwon was the player everybody wanted in that draft. Then, Sam Bowie was the other big man everybody was looking for in those days. Michael Jordan kinda fell into the laps of the Chicago Bulls.&quot;</p><p>Like Jordan, who turned the Bulls into one of the greatest NBA franchises of all time, Abarrientos started the resurrection of Alaska.</p><p>After winning its first championship in 1991, Alaska encountered bumps on the road the next season, mostly dealing with the situation of Bong Alvarez, the team&#x27;s controversial franchise player.</p><p>By the 1993 season, Alaska got rid of the problem by trading Alvarez for another Bong — Bong Hawkins — then worked on developing the future of the franchise by getting Abarrientos to be the the right man on the wheel.</p><p>As early as the first day of practice with the team, Cone knew that Alaska secured a gem of a talent in Abarrientos.</p><p>&quot;We were happy to have Johnny, no doubt about it,&quot; Cone said. &quot;I remember telling (Alaska owner) Fred Uytengsu that we needed to trade some of our point guards because Johnny is going to dominate that position. He&#x27;s going to play 44, 45 minutes a game. So we cleared out a space for him to play.&quot;</p><p>Alaska just released Frankie Lim, a key member of its first champion team to give way for the entry of Abarrientos.</p><p>&quot;In order for us to develop our chemistry, we need to take full advantage of Johnny. That&#x27;s what we said during the draft,&quot; Cone said. </p><p>Again, there were reservations in taking Abarrientos. </p><p>Never in PBA history had the league seen a 5-foot-7 dynamo who would dominate the game.</p><p>&quot;But still, he was a point guard. Who wants a point guard?,&quot; Cone recalled Uytengsu reasoning out on why they should pick Abarrientos. </p><p>Everything changed the first day of practice.</p><p>&quot;Then, the defining moment. And I&#x27;ll never ever forget this. It&#x27;s only been done once. The first day of practice. We were doing our scrimmage with guys playing in front of me, including the new draftees. We were doing scrimmages and then Johnny did his classic kili-kili (armpit) shot against Alex Araneta,&quot; said Cone. </p><p>&quot;He went up with Alex right in front of him, put in Alex&#x27;s back and flipped it up. It was the most amazing shot we&#x27;ve seen. The game just completely stopped. Nobody put the ball out of bounds, nobody did anything. We just stopped and then some guys were just clapping.&quot;</p><p>That started the legend of “The Flying A.”</p><p>In just a year, Abarrientos led Alaska to 2 finals appearances the following season as the team lost to Purefoods in a 5-game series in the Commissioner&#x27;s Cup and then won a championship in the season-ending Governors&#x27; Cup.</p><p>From 1994 to end of the 1996 season, Abarrientos and the Milkmen appeared in the finals for 8 straight conferences. </p><p>They lost the first 2 conferences against Sunkist in 1995, then won the season-ending Governors&#x27; Cup against San Miguel Beer.</p><p>In 1996, Abarrientos had his finest season, leading his squad to a grand slam on top of winning the season MVP award. He was the smallest player to win the most prestigious individual plum.</p><p>In 1997 and 1998, Abarrientos and the Milkmen would put together another winning streak, beginning the Governors&#x27; Cup of 1997 when the team traded to acquire another important piece in Kenneth Duremdes and had a near grand slam the next year.</p><p>Had it not been for the Centennial Team when the key members of the squad represented the country at the Asian Games, it would have been a second triple crown for Alaska.</p><p>Looking back, Cone described how special Abarrientos was.</p><p>&quot;That very first day of practice, I knew and everybody knew, that we had somebody incredibly special,&quot; added Cone. &quot;It was just that moment and we weren&#x27;t surprised whenever he did that in our games. You know what? We saw that every day after that. Every day he would do something special.</p><p>&quot;You think you like what he did during the games? You didn&#x27;t even see half of the stuff he did. He did more stuff in practice daily that was amazing and his teammates would be delighted every time.&quot; </p><p>Abarrientos won his last title for Alaska in 2000 before he and Poch Juinio were traded to Pop Cola for Jon Ordonio and Ali Peek.</p><p>But there&#x27;s really no doubt that Abarrientos was Alaska&#x27;s most special gem, a player who defied odds and who proved that great things sometimes came in small packages.</p>

How could a perennial MVP contender and a player capable of turning around a franchise fall to No. 3 in the rookie draft?