Maverick Ahanmisi is having himself a conference, and he’s been playing inspired basketball.
Unknown to everybody, his former teammate and Chris Tiu had a hand in his ongoing breakout season. Tiu had ‘formally passed’ Ahanmisi the torch before he retired from pro play before the 44th season of the PBA began.
Ahanmisi said that Tiu had talked to him personally, giving last orders before he left the Elasto Painters’ point guard duty to him entering the 2019 PBA Philippine Cup.
“When he left, he told me specific things to do. He taught me a lot when he was here, and I think I just learned from him,” said the 6-foot-2 combo guard Ahanmisi, who racked up all-around numbers of eight points, 14 rebounds, five assists, and four steals in Rain or Shine’s 85-72 win over the debuting Alaska Aces.
“As you guys know, Chris is not the most athletic person out there. But he’s a really smart player and I think he’s passed that on to me. I think I’ve really learned a lot from here.”
With Tiu’s knowledge, there was no stopping Ahanmisi from finally coming out of his shell this conference. He has been norming an impressive 13.0 points, 6.6 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.8 steals in the Elasto Painters’ strong 4-1 start for second place midway through the Philippine Cup.
However, the Los Angeles, California native still deflected the credit to the whole Rain or Shine squad and head coach Caloy Garcia, who devised a welcoming system this time for all the players to have an equal chance of scoring which proved to be effective in their winning run.
“It’s an all-around effort really. People ask me about assists and stuff. I’m not the one shooting the ball you know, I’m just passing it. I think it was an all-around effort. I just wanted to come out aggressive any type of way,” added the 27-year old cager.
“Our balanced scoring shows that everybody’s going to touch the ball and that’s not really pertaining to one person. People are scoring because of the system and coach Caloy is changing it up a little bit, just seeing where he can alter stuff to make things easier for us.”
Amid a great conference start both for him and the whole Elasto Painters, Ahanmisi vows not to let up. Especially because the formidable NorthPort Batang Pier and the unbeaten Phoenix Pulse Fuel Masters stand in their way as their next two opponents.
“This is one of the most pristine conferences, so you want to make a statement that we are one of the better All-Filipino teams,” he added.
“We just want to stay aggressive with the games coming up, especially against NorthPort, they’re playing pretty well, and Phoenix, which is 4-0. We just want to keep the aggressive activity going.”
