Ball throwing incident earns Ginebra's Caguioa one-game suspension

Bad news for Barangay Ginebra, but definitely, a most welcome one for Derby Ace. The PBA Commissioner’s Office on Friday slapped a one-game suspension on Kings' stalwart Mark Caguioa for throwing the ball at a referee during the team’s game against the Air21 Express last Wednesday at the Araneta Coliseum.

On top of the one-game suspension, the high-scoring shooting guard was also fined P20,000. And to make matter worst, Caguioa will serve the suspension on Sunday when the Kings take on the Derby Ace Llamados. Commissioner Sonny Barrios painstakingly tried to appreciate Caguioa's explanation on the incident but emphasized the league rules on “the action and not the intention." In his letter to Caguioa, Barrios noted that there is strong video footage evidence showing that he first looked at and had seen referee Throngy Aldaba before actually throwing the ball at him. It would therefore be difficult to accept the Ginebra star's contention that he was surprised to see referee Aldaba and he didn’t noticed that he was bouncing the ball off a game official. But even if Caguioa claimed he thought he was bouncing the ball off an opponent, Barrios noted that the normal and legitimate way of bouncing off the ball against an opponent, in order to retain possession, is to bounce it off against the lower portion/extremities of the body (from knee down). However, Caguioa bounced the ball off the person's chest – an act classified as Flagrant Foul Penalty 2 (FFP2) under the PBA Playing rules. Barrios also cited a recent case involving Alaska's Brandon Cablay, who was slapped a similar punishment after playfully tossing the ball and hitting his friend Air21 guard Mike Cortez. "We cannot rule on intentions of offenders as it would be dangerous to read one's intentions. Instead, we rule on one’s actions," Barrios told Caguioa in his letter. "Was the ball thrown at the referee? Was the referee hit by the ball?" Those two questions, Barrios said, are the compelling determinants if the playing rule has been violated or not. – GMANews.TV