By Noel G. Tulabut, iOrbit News
Want to know what team business mogul and basketball aficionado Manny V. Pangilinan is rooting for in the ongoing finals of the National Basketball Association?
It’s Golden State Warriors, owing to his love for the Bay Area especially San Francisco.
“I am biased for San Francisco as a city,” Pangilinan said Tuesday night in his roundtable talks with Pampanga media at the Shangri-la Plaza in Makati City.
The Philippine basketball patron however lamented the loss of the Bay Area team in Game 5 right in their own turf.
Despite his hectic schedule, the chairman of PLDT (no longer called Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, with notice to Securities and Exchange Commission) followed the game before presiding the annual stockholders meeting of the leading Telco.
“They played hot and cold. They played poorly this morning,” Pangilinan said of the 112-97 Warriors’ loss to the Cavaliers.
He also questioned the NBA’s decision to slap a suspension on Draymond Green as he reached his limit for committing flagrant fouls. The flagrant foul was called retroactively after a review of the game.
“Tinapik lang ni Green. Flagrant ba yon?” asked MVP, referring to the power forward’s foul that apparently showed Green hitting Lebron James on the groin in Game 4.
He could not help but compare the call on Green that earned him his suspension to the common foul meted on Matthew Dellavedova on Andre Iguodala in Game 1. In that play, Dellavedova tried to snatch the ball but his hand landed on the crotch of Iguodala, last year’s Finals MVP.
“How do you describe that kind of play?” MVP asked this writer.
As I tried to shift subject at that point, he said: “you did not answer me.” Then he furthered in a jest: “He was not aiming for the ball. He was aiming for the balls.”
Asked whether he is still wants to acquire an NBA team, MVP said: “I’m still interested, we just need a good timing for it”
Which team?
“I hope it’s the Warriors,” he added.