Christian Standhardinger expressed his excitement for the looming return of teammate June Mar Fajardo to the San Miguel Beermen, as Fajardo has now been cleared by his doctors to play after suffering a leg injury.
The reigning four-time Most Valuable Player missed nine games of the 2018 PBA Governors Cup – and even Gilas Pilipinas duties in the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers last September – thanks to the stress fracture in his right shin.
Fajardo sat out for two months, and without him, the Beermen struggled early in the season-ending conference – they were even at 2-4 once. But now, he’s about to come back to a team that is in the midst of a three-game winning streak.
Fajardo is expected to play for the Beermen – and probably secure an unprecedented fifth straight MVP plum in his hands – this Saturday in Biñan, when San Miguel go head-to-head with the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters.
“I can’t wait until June Mar is back,” said Standhardinger.
Standhardinger has been solid while filling the void left by Fajardo. He was stellar on Wednesday night, dropping 21 points on 7-of-13 shooting alongside 22 rebounds to help the Beermen repel the NorthPort Batang Pier, 114-107.
“I just hustled the ball and my teammates did a great job in putting me in the right situation,” said the 6-foot-8 Filipino-German, who is in his rookie year.
Still, even though he’s doing a commendable job in the five spot, everything will be better once Fajardo comes back. “We can’t wait to have him back so we’re gonna be a better team,” he stressed.
“We did a great job and we really figured out how to play with each other. It took adjustments… First we had to learn how to play with me, then we had to play with AZ (Reid) and AZ got out so we got to play with Kevin (Murphy) so we had to adjust again.
“And when June Mar comes back – obviously he’s a key player for us, so we have to adjust again and that’s gonna be a tough situation for us, (but) I think we have high basketball IQ to figure it out,” Standhardinger added.
