PBA: Air 21 Express 2012 Draft preview

2011-12 season recap:

• Philippine Cup: 0-14 (10th) eliminated in the first round
• Commissioner’s Cup: 3-6 (10th) eliminated in the first round
• Governor’s Cup: 2-7 (10th) eliminated in the first round

What happened? Last place in all three conferences for the maiden campaign of the Shopinas.com Clickers/Air 21 Express? That seems about right. As an expansion team in the PBA, the word “expectations” was not thrown around a lot often for the Express. Starting with last year’s PBA draft, which netted the franchise a bunch of less than stellar recruits, the coaching staff and players were tasked with competing every game in the hopes of starting a foundation that could lead to future success. A winless Philippine Cup Conference for the then-Shopinas.com Clickers was a tough pill to swallow. To the credit of the Clickers, they were a scrappy bunch that competed in every game, but were just simply overwhelmed. In the import-laden second and third conferences, the now-Air 21 Express were able to earn valuable wins against their opponents, but still stumbled to last place finishes. The standouts for the Clickers/Express were veteran Renren Ritualo, who showed that he still had a lot of firepower at his disposal, and Ogie Menor, who made waves in the league, although for the wrong reasons. Menor was in the headlines a lot this season for butting heads (literally) with players and coaches, drawing the ire of opposing fans. For what it’s worth, it made Express games interesting to watch, if only to see what their enforcer would do to raise hell on the court. Where do they go from here? There’s a reason why more attention was placed on Air 21’s off-the-court antics than on the actual games played: the team was just overpowered by the talent on the other teams. That’s nothing to panic about though, because Air 21 is still finding its legs in the PBA. The next step for the Express is just to amass talent, in whatever way possible. The draft is a good strategy, but they need to be wise about their selections. The Express don’t have a single pick in the first round of the draft, so every selection in the subsequent round/s will matter. Their strategy should just be to get the best available player available to draft, and prepare him to be able to contribute right away. What do they need most? The Express need talent, and lots of it. If we haven’t been abundantly clear, the Express are in need of players who will be able to stand toe-to-toe with the more established players of the league, and hold their own. It’s not going to be easy in this year’s draft. Once we get to the second round, it’s going to be a crapshoot to weed through this draft class’ aspirants. But there should still be some good talent on the board Possible trades This subject heading might be a bit misleading for Air 21, because a trade is desperately needed for the squad above and beyond this year’s Draft. While some rookies might be able to come in and help lift the Express’ fortunes this season, it’s unlikely there’s a game changer available in the second round. Therefore, Air 21 should exert all efforts into trading their picks to either move up to the first round, or trade for a veteran who’ll help push forward the team. Every single player for the Express, short of Arboleda and Ritualo, should be available in case any team would want to deal. Players like Omolon and Isip will be productive wherever they go, so a package of one or both of those players, plus their second round draft pick, might be enough to entice one of the teams drafting in the seventh to tenth pick range.  - AMD, GMA News