Kobey Lam won’t admit it, but behind the smile was utter frustration after Macau suffered a humiliating beatdown at the hands of NLEX in a lopsided start to the PBA Season 50 Governors’ Cup resumption on Wednesday evening.
“Gotta keep it professional,” he told members of the press with a chuckle in the aftermath of their 138-78 defeat at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
The 26-year-old guard was visibly exhausted after he and new import Oscar Lopez played for the entirety of the ball game — an inevitable situation given the manpower woes the team encountered during the break.
The Giant Pandas lost a total of four players when the league paused the conference for almost two months to give way to Gilas’ campaigns in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers and the 20th Asian Games.
First to leave was diminutive scorer Damian Chongqui, who linked up with Macau Houchon for the 2026-27 East Asia Super League competitions. Then the seasoned tandem of Ramon Cao and Jenning Leung reunited with Hong Kong Eastern also for the home-and-away pan-regional tilt.
(C) PBA Images
Import De’Vondre Perry followed suit, leaving the guest team depleted and with no other choice but to bring in more local talent just to field a lineup.
That also left Lam behind as the team’s only legitimate producer. As difficult as it was to see his teammates go one after the other, he’s glad that they all have gone to better situations by joining squads playing in the EASL.
“You know what, it’s kinda rough losing our main lineup, but I’m proud of them,” the former Bay Area Dragon said.
“Four of them are in the EASL — two on Eastern, I’m sure our import Dre picked up a contract, and Dame in Macau.”
Macau fell to 2-8 following the 60-point loss to NLEX, now the most lopsided result in league history. And with two games left in their campaign, the Canadian gunslinger aims to stay locked in; simply put, play on.
“Just play hard,” said Lam, who finished with a 22-7-8 stat line against 10 turnovers in the loss. “Just don’t be out of character; keep it professional, although I know losing [four] players is not gonna be easy.
“But we’ll still grab the opportunity to play in the PBA and all that, and hopefully after this we can pick up other contracts; use this as a stepping stone for the future.”
