2014-15 Rain or Shine Elasto Painters Primer

2013-14 Standings:

Players Lost: Larry Rodriguez (Trade), Kevin Alas (Trade) and Alex Nuyles (Dispersal Draft)
2014 Draft Pick: #2 pick: Kevin Alas, #9 pick: Jericho Cruz
Players Added: Jericho Cruz (Rookie Draft)

2014 Projected Depth Chart: Rain or Shine

The Bandwagon Wire Says:

Looking from the outside, the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters are probably the tightest team in the league. They seem to have fun moving the ball around, making a fancy pass here and there, and even banging bodies against opposing bigs. Then the Paul Lee saga happened. We don’t know how this would affect the team’s chemistry and everyone knows Coach Yeng Guiao hates (is there any word deeper than hate?) egos in his teams. Hopefully, team management, the players and Paul Lee’s management team mended their differences during the off-season and no hard feelings were brought about after the fiasco.

Storylines

Gilas-fatigue? No problem!

The Elasto Painters gave 4 players, Paul Lee, Jeff Chan, Beau Belga and Gabe Norwood, to the National Men’s Basketball team. Chan, Belga, and Norwood have since been with the National team program since the FIBA Asia Cup last year. So those three stars have been on the hard courts, non-stop, since October 2012! Moreover, they have only had a total of 3 months out of the court for the last 24 months. Paul Lee, on the other hand, joined the National Team pool since the FIBA Club Championship.

We at the Wire think that the fatigue problem that plagued the Tropang Texters last year would not affect the Elasto Painters, in general, since the team has the best managed player rotation in the league as seen in this table:

*No longer with the team

In an interesting factoid, no one from the Rain or Shine squad are in the top 30 in minutes logged in the league last season even if the team played a total of 64 games last year, which is 2^nd behind the Mixers.

This season, the team is still as deep as the ocean. Coach Yeng Guiao, the mad scientist that he is, will still find pleasure in mixing and matching line-ups much to the chagrin of opposing coaches.

The X-Factor: Raymond Almazan

Rain or Shine, for all its reputation of having the toughest bigs in the league, is still one of the smallest teams in the league with an average height of 6’2”. Out of all their players, Raymond Almazan is the tallest standing at 6’8”.

As we all know, Coach Yeng is high on Almazan since the 2012 NCAA season. Even ROS stars, Belga and Quinahan, were even seen watching Almazan in San Juan Arena and the Mall of Asia Arena during the NCAA Finals 2 years ago. We are in year 2 of Almazan’s career and everyone is expecting him to login more minutes at the back-up center spot.

Ever since his playing days in Letran, Almazan has a limited offensive skillset. Where Almazan stands-out is on defense. He is an outstanding rim protector. The problem he had in his first season at the pros though is that he overcommitted on D resulting to foul trouble most of the time. Hopefully, Almazan can improve on this since the All-Filipino conference is the best time to he could showcase his skills.

2014 Philippine Cup Prediction

This Rain-or-Shine team is still a lock to reach the quarterfinals for sure. But it would be tough for the team to be matched with the likes of the Barangay, the Tropang Texters or the Hotshots in the semis due to their lack of size in the middle, unless Raymond Almazan improves by leaps and bounds. Otherwise…

Our prediction: 2^nd place after the elimination round, eliminated in the semifinals

To end, we’ll leave you with this song

 2014-15 PBA Philippine Cup Primers