Richard Del Rosario couldn’t be any happier to be part of the PBA’s return, something that he himself hoped for months ago. He even put together a proposal aimed at saving the mothballed season.
“Natutuwa lang naman talaga ako,” the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel deputy told 2OT, speaking all the way from his room at the Quest Plus Conference Center in Clark, where the league’s bubble is mounted.
Back in May, a few months after the league decided to suspend the season indefinitely due to the novel coronavirus, Del Rosario proposed a “Quarantine Cup” just to salvage Season 45.
In a nine-minute video addressed to the PBA Board of Governors and Commissioner Willie Marcial, the veteran mentor called for a compressed conference that would run for a maximum of two months.
All members of the PBA family would have to undergo rapid testing first, per the proposal. Those who tested negative would report to a team quarantine facility, while those who tested positive would be sent home.
The team quarantine facility, according to Del Rosario, should ideally be near practice and game venues. Lodging would be shouldered by the teams and the players would shoulder the food.
It would also serve as the training camp of the ball clubs for 14 days, where they could practice twice a day. The idea, he said, was that “one month’s worth of practice will be compressed in two weeks.”
Only those who would not show symptoms of COVID-19 would be allowed to take part in the tournament. The format, under the proposal, was similar to the one used in the mid-season Commissioner’s Cup.
The elimination round would be a single round-robin, and it could possibly end within just 17 days if four games will be played every day. That means teams could play back-to-back, or three consecutive days.
Location-wise, Del Rosario suggested venues such as the Upper Deck Sports Center, the Moro Lorenzo Sports Center, Ronac Art Center, Azure Residences, and Gatorade Hoops Center, which entails a lower rental cost.
His proposal earned the endorsement of Coach Tim Cone via Twitter, although Del Rosario himself admitted that it isn’t perfect. But he presented it as there might be something in it that the league could build on.
The league, though, reportedly set aside that proposal owing to the expenses and risks that the idea presents.
“At that time, I didn’t think it was really possible. I was really hoping. Kaya nga lang siyempre, at that time, iba ‘yung mga conditions,” Del Rosario told the podcast hosted by PBA broadcasters Carlo Pamintuan and Magoo Marjon.
About three months later, though, the league expressed its eagerness to get the ball rolling again for the pandemic-delayed season. And they plan to do so by setting up its own bubble just like the NBA.
Twenty entities expressed their intentions of hosting the season restart, but Asia’s pioneering pro league ultimately chose the former US military base located in Pampanga to mount its bubble.
Shortly after, the league was granted provisional approval by the Inter-Agency Task Force, finally allowing the PBA to return.
And looking at how the season will be played, the league seems to have taken a few ideas from Del Rosario’s proposal, like the length of the whole tournament, which will run for a couple of months from October to December.
Elimination round games will also be played on a daily basis although the league will only host double-header affairs, far from the cager-turned-mentor’s proposal of four games a day.
The format is also a bit different from his proposal, with the league adapting the same one it uses for the Governors’ Cup where the top four teams at the end of the eliminations will have a twice-to-beat advantage in the quarterfinals. Both the semifinals will be a best-of-five battle and the winners will vie for the championship in a best-of-seven series.
Whether or not the league took cues from the ideas he had fielded last May, Del Rosario is just immensely grateful now that the PBA is making its way back into action for many months of stoppage.
“Now that I’m actually here part of this bubble, very thankful ako. At ito nga, masisimuluan na natin ang PBA.”
