October 2007 Team Overview

Sta. Lucia Realtors

Allow us to introduce: Ryan Reyes, Dennis Daa, Christian Coronel, Melvin Mamaclay, Philip Butel and Joseph Yeo.

Dearly departed: Ronnie Bughao, Rafael Santos, Cesar Catli, Mark Isip and Mark Magsumbol

Winning chances? Picking Ryan Reyes from the draft was big. Getting Josephy Yeo was bigger. Both can run and score outside, and they are usually good for a double digit scoring each night. If Coach Boyet Fernandez can get these guys to play together with the steady, blue-collar forward Nelbert Omolon and high-flying potential All-Star Kelly Williams – and that's an extremely big "if" – they'll be thick in the hunt for a semis berth.

Cause for concern? For all their new talents, the Realtors still don't do two things well: consistent defense until the fourth quarter and distribute the ball until it finds the open man. Also, the Realtors still lack a dependable low-post scorer aside from Dennis Espino, and they won't get much help in that area from Marlou Aquino, whose production on both ends of the floor declined in the last 3 years. Aquino’s lackluster performance means newcomers Dennis Daa and Melvin Mamaclay need to step up. The Realtors might be better off retiring Aquino this early and use him as a training player because, simply put, his cons far outweigh his pros in a standard professional basketball league.

Hoping for the best: No longer sharing the stage with Kenneth Duremdes, Williams must now prove he's worthy of being the franchise's new cornerstone.

Also, if the Realtors are going to shed their image of pass-the-ball-to-Espino-and-wait-for-him-to-miss, their coaching system needs to be the first thing to undergo a makeover. And considering their penchant to rely more on Espino and even Aquino to score under the basket, that will be a long and tedious process.