I would love to see JR Quinahan back in the PBA again.
Even at his age, he transformed his body so he could extend his career.
Yes, he had an injury that sidelined him for most of the 2022-23 PBA season but it’s not like it's career-threatening. He was able to star in a bunch of outside tournaments.
...
Right...
I don’t know why Quinahan would think that doing outside tournaments is a good idea. Yes, one-time payments are impossible to resist. Have you seen these tournaments? Quinahan would probably either “mamaw” the competition or just get the rebound, baseball pass it to another teammate, and just be done with it.
And why the hell would you fight in a ligang labas? Yes, egos are involved but, you can’t milk the news because it’s against a no-namer and yeah, the violation is going to have media attention.
And who are they facing? Why on earth are their American basketball players playing in that kind of atmosphere?
NLEX has every right to sanction Quinahan because he missed almost the entire season because of an injury and here he is fighting against some random goon in some substandard basketball flooring.
I don’t care if these repeat offenders are playing in an alta de ciudad basketball court. A barangay basketball court with a roof DOES NOT have the same feel as The Mall of Asia Arena. Yes, if a man can run and shoot the ball, then he can play basketball in any place he wishes...
... except that you’re paid 420k to play for a professional basketball team.
If a company says no despite your request to play in a random tournament, then you abide by their rules. The move made him miss at least over 10 million of guaranteed pay if the Spin.ph article is correct that he’s going to be given 420k up until December 2025. Furthermore, I am just counting the pay he could be receiving in October 2023. This incident happened last May 2023. A rough estimate could be at least 1.2 million pesos in financial damage for probably 100k of unsupervised action.
He can spam the games he can play up until his star value has declined. The MPBL is a great spot for a sure salary but it’s a step down from what he could be making in the MVP-backed Road Warriors. Playing as an import in Southeast Asian leagues is another option.
I get why Yeng Guiao is not taking his former player. I get the other small market teams like Terrafirma, Phoenix, and Blackwater as well. Quinahan is 39 with a dubious history and a huge previous salary. These four teams are overloaded with draft picks every season and even in the third or fourth round, they can get a player half of his talents for more than half of his price.
The NBA is loaded with these kinds of players. Dwight Howard is an example.
With that said, Dwight is enjoying his time in Taiwan.
So I guess the MPBL is really an option.
Quinahan is a precautionary tale for most PBA players. If you really want to play in these tournaments, then you need to ask your team first. They have the right to say no but maybe they could say yes so what’s the harm in trying?
Besides, if they really want to play in the outside leagues, they can just do what Encho Serrano did. He just pulled out from Phoenix because he probably saw that the grass was greener in the other leagues. And this is the problem that will never change in the PBA until they address it. San Miguel Corporation disclosed that they are spending at least one billion pesos to finance their three teams. In some ways, I think the MVP Group is a couple of million below that – considering that while their players aren’t as big as that of SMC, they are also financing Gilas Pilipinas as well as other sports.
Again, the farm teams are a problem. When a player hits the two-year mark and wants to get more money, all he needs to do is ask for a trade with the bigger teams. Rodney Brondial and Nard Pinto chose money over playing time when they became unrestricted free agents in 2022. Stars like Kiefer Ravena, Matthew Wright, Robert Bolick, and a slew of others signed as international imports because of the money involved and the fact that they are also going to be regarded as top players.
I may be a Jeric Teng fan (GO USTE) but some players are earning more by spamming the other leagues and having one fallback team to lean on – which is something that you can’t do in the PBA.
So unless they make significant changes in how we see the PBA (as in, make the teams a mix of city-based and corporate-based), you’ll probably a lot of stars like Quinahan looking for other rakets despite telling his mother teams that he is still in recovery.