ANTIPOLO – Bay Area head coach Brian Goorjian lauded the professionalism of Myles Powell and Andrew Nicholson as the former NBA cagers saw their stint with the ball club suffer a big hit all because of unforeseen circumstances.
“Full credit to those guys in how they’ve handled this,” the champion mentor said moments after the Dragons’ win over Rain or Shine in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup, Friday night at the Ynares Center here.
The team’s participation in the Filipino pro league is part of their build-up for the East Asia Super League, which was originally set to open last October until the organizers pushed it back to March next year due to COVID-19 concerns.
That development greatly affected the newly founded franchise, especially the two Americans set to reinforce the squad in the regional club tilt.
“It’s been very difficult,” said Goorjian, who was named the Hong Kong side’s mentor last May. “It wasn’t part of the agreement when they were recruited.”
So, that left the PBA as their only activity now, and it doesn’t help that Powell and Nicholson can’t play together at the same time based on the setup agreed upon by both Bay Area and the league prior to the mid-season conference.
For the uninitiated, the Dragons were just allowed to play with one import for four games each, and will have to choose one for their ninth game to be their permanent reinforcement for the rest of the tournament.
(C) PBA Images
The team has made a choice and that’s by bringing back the 6-foot-2 Powell, the one responsible for their perfect 4-0 start into the cagefest.
He was quick to prove Bay Area right, lighting it up with a 50-piece to power his side to the 120-87 victory over the Elasto Painters to go 7-2.
For Goorjian, the selection process was not about who can provide more, but rather a move of his to keep his imports engaged while they await the EASL wars, dubbed as the ‘Champions Week,’ four months from now.
(C) PBA Images
“My issue is we’ve got the EASL coming up… We’re here for seven months. I want to keep my two imports engaged as long as I can. It’s not fair for them to sit for six months,” offered the 69-year-old bench tactician.
“Nic could get 50 every game, and he almost did; Myles could get 50 a game, he did. Nothing about that. It’s that they’re very important to our team. They’re both gonna be playing together in the EASL and we wanna keep both engaged.”
