The PBA's 25 Greatest Players All Time Team

Photo credits: Ariel D. Morales uploaded via Allan Caidic‘s Facebook Fan Page

I just stumbled upon on this picture from Allan Caidic’s Fan Page  and the first thing that came to my mind is that I want to blog about this, I am a die-hard PBA fan from the 80’s and 90’s that’s the time that we had no television set in our household as we don’t have electricity available yet in our community. Luckily, there is a rich family in our neighborhood that could afford to have electricity, a television set and a huge house back on those years. The owner of the house even the rest of the family members are a fan of Philippine Basketball like me when there is a live telecast on PBA Games or delayed air time of the NBA as expected they’re hooked with it and I benefited every night haha.

I’m sorry tele-novela addicts you won’t get a chance to see your favorite Tagalog TV series. Imagine this, this house is like a mini-cinema in our community where almost people flock to his house just to see a night show or even a late night show and yours truly is one of those. How generous is it? It is how I ended up watching PBA and been a fan and following San Miguel Beer games (now Petron Blaze Boosters) now and then to support my second favorite team is the Brgy. Ginebra because of my fellow Pangasinense Marlou Aquino not Robert Jaworski haha, though my father named my brother Obet next to him because he was born on 7th of June as Jawo is famous in #7 jersey, it makes since my father is a certified Jaworski fan haha. :-D

The most memorable championship that I could remember is the 1989 San Miguel Beer Grand slam championships were they win all three conferences in a year the PBA Open Conference Finals, PBA All Filipino Conference Finals and PBA Reinforced Conference Finals. If you are a San Miguel fan you know this all games in the finals almost go over time not just once twice even thrice I’m not sure haha and which is a good game that you wanted more action and prayed that the clock never stops because of that exciting game and heart pounding action on the hardwood.

Thanks to the likes of Samboy Lim, Ato Agustin, Alan Caidic, Hector Calma, Abet Guidaben for the good show and winning moments not to mention Nelson “The Bull” Asaytono. This fascination of mine to San Miguel Beer players extended to Rodericko Cesar “Olsen” Escueta Racela, my fellow Pangasinense Danilo “The Demolition Man” Ildeponso,  Donaldo “Dondon” Hontiveros among others. Isn’t great to have a memory lane on those epic championship games? How about you do you have childhood memories of your favorite PBA Team?

The lists below are the of PBA’s 25th Anniversary All-Time Team in no particular order:

Click on their names to see their profile/autobiography made possible by of Wikipedia.org.

Name	School	Nationality	PBA teams
Johnny Abarrientos	FEU	Pilipino	Alaska, Pop Cola, Coca-Cola, Barangay Ginebra
Bogs Adornado	UST	Pilipino	Crispa, U/Tex, Great Taste, Shell, Hills Bros/Alaska
Renato Agustin	Lyceum	Pilipino	San Miguel, Sunkist/Pop Cola, Sta Lucia, Red Bull
Francis Arnaiz	Ateneo	Pilipino	Toyota, Gilbey’s Gin/Ginebra
Ricardo Brown	Pepperdine, DLSU	Pilipino	Great Taste, San Miguel
Allan Caidic	UE	Pilipino	Great Taste/Presto, San Miguel, Barangay Ginebra
Hector Calma	Adamson	Pilipino	San Miguel
Philip Cezar	JRU	Pilipino	Crispa, Shell, Great Taste/Presto, Ginebra
Atoy Co	Mapúa	Pilipino	Crispa, Manila Beer, Great Taste/Presto
Jerry Codiñera	UE	Pilipino	Purefoods, Mobiline/Talk N Text, FedEx
Kenneth Duremdes	Adamson	Pilipino	Sunkist/Pop Cola, Alaska, Sta. Lucia, Coca-Cola
Bernie Fabiosa	USJ-R	Pilipino	Crispa, Shell, Presto, Purefoods, Diet Sarsi/Swift
Ramon Fernandez	San Carlos	Pilipino	Toyota, Beer Hausen, Tanduay, San Miguel, Purefoods
Danny Florencio	UST	Pilipino	U/Tex, 7-Up, Toyota, Galerie Dominique
Abet Guidaben	USJ-R	Pilipino	Crispa, Tanduay, Manila Beer, San Miguel, Purefoods, Alaska, Pepsi/7-Up, Shell
Freddie Hubalde	Mapúa	Pilipino	Crispa, Tanduay, Purefoods, Shell, Añejo
Robert Jaworski	UE	Pilipino	Toyota, Ginebra
Jojo Lastimosa	Ateneo, USJ-R	Pilipino	Purefoods, Alaska, Pop Cola
Lim Eng Beng	DLSU	Pilipino	Carrier, U/Tex, San Miguel, Crispa, Manila Beer
Samboy Lim	Letran	Pilipino	San Miguel
Ronnie Magsanoc	UP	Pilipino	Shell, Sta Lucia, Purefoods
Vergel Meneses	JRU	Pilipino	Presto, Sta. Lucia, Swift/Sunkist/Pop Cola, Ginebra, FedEx, Red Bull, Talk N Text
Manny Paner	UV	Pilipino	Royal/San Miguel, Great Taste, CDCP
Alvin Patrimonio	Mapúa	Pilipino	Purefoods
Benjie Paras	UP	Pilipino	Shell, San Miguel

As of this writing, I am still reading each players profile above and I would say to my self ahhh, okay I learned something about that person today haha. :-) Thanks for certain Rafe “Paeng” Bartholomew in publishing a book “Pacific Rims” that introduced me to dig deeper in the history of basketball in the Philippines. Kudos! :-) That book by the way lended by a friend in response to my Facebook shout out that I want this book. Thanks to you to, you know who you are he he many likes for you don’t worry I am taking care of your book.

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