June Mar Fajardo continues to rewrite the PBA’s history books.
As if doubling the previous record for most Best Player of the Conference awards wasn’t enough, the San Miguel star earned plaque no. 11 after being hailed as the top performer of the Season 49 Governors’ Cup on Sunday.
In a ceremony held before Game 4 of the Finals between TNT and Ginebra at the SMART Araneta Coliseum, the solid crowd rained down cheers and adoration on the league’s only eight-time MVP for his latest milestone.
(C) PBA Images
For sure, he would’ve wanted his Beermen to be there competing in the Big Dance instead, but capturing another BPC title may suffice as his consistency from start to finish of the season-opening conference got aptly rewarded.
Fajardo led the statistical points race from the end of the elimination round to the semifinals’ conclusion, finishing with 44.8 SPs — numbers bigger than Best Import candidates in teammate EJ Anosike and Rain or Shine’s Aaron Fuller.
He finished this edition of the Governors’ Cup with per-game averages of 21.0 points, a league-leading 16.3 rebounds, 3.1 assists, and a block as he led the perennial contenders to a semis trip before falling to the Barangay.
Yet that exit, which also foiled their bid of reaching the Finals thrice in a row, didn’t stop him from snaring the award, doing so by garnering a total of 989 points from stats and votes from the media and players.
Japeth Aguilar was a distant second with 664 points, followed by his Kings teammate Scottie Thompson (465), NorthPort star Arvin Tolentino (421), Robert Bolick of NLEX (401), and SMB guard CJ Perez (366).
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Bagging home the Best Import award, on the other hand, was Rondae Hollis-Jefferson of TNT as he and Fajardo both ended up at the finish line of their respective SPs awards race that they led right from the beginning.
The lefty do-it-all winger netted 57.4 SPs by semis’ end as he catalyzed the Tropang Giga’s success in this tournament. They finished as the no. 1 seed in Group A before beating NLEX and Rain or Shine to return to the Finals.
And similar to Fajardo, he won the Bobby Parks Plaque by a big margin, collecting 1,221 points built on stats and votes from the media and players to beat Justin Brownlee (947), Fuller (590), and Anosike (548).
With this, RHJ retained his throne as the top reinforcement of the conference. He won the plum in 2023 when he steered the Tropang Giga to the Finals, and eventually to the championship by beating Ginebra in six games.
No doubt that a repeat is on his mind, and he could get even closer to that goal should the flagship MVP Group franchise take care of business later tonight. A win would give them a 3-1 lead and the chance to wrap it up on Wednesday.
