The 350,000-peso Club

The Salary Cap situation has gone from bad to worse. The war has now escalated to the Commissioner’s Office and PBA Commish Chito Salud wants Alaska Aces owner Wilfred Stephen Uytengsu to show proof on his accusations.

With this, the PBA office revealed that there are 15 players whose contracts are worth the maximum salary of 350,000 pesos.

If I am a betting man (successful betting man), I’ll probably predict the 15 would be like this:

Jay Washington

Arwind Santos

Dondon Hontiveros

Jimmy Alapag

Kelly Williams

Asi Taulava

James Yap

Kerby Raymundo

Joe Devance

Willie Miller...

Halfway in the list though, I saw the twit of @thepbaologist and he sent the following guidelines.

Alaska – 4

B-Meg – 3

TNT – 2

Meralco – 2

Air21 – 1

Powerade – 1

ROS – 1

BGK – 1

There is no SMB/Petron player on the list?

WHAT GIVES!?!

You see the SMC squads should have the most expensive players because they have the best players available! This is why it came as a shock to me that Alaska leads the least and the Petron squad has zero.

Can the reason for this anomaly be the “under the table” scenario Uytengsu has been ranting for days now or are the execs that could in terms of contract negotiations?

This is the reason why they need to publicize the salary structure of the PBA.

Again if I was a betting man, I’d probably think that the players with max salaries are the following:

Alaska: LA Tenorio, Cyrus Baguio, Sonny Thoss, and Tony Dela Cruz

B-Meg: James Yap, Kerby Raymundo, and Joe Devance

TNT: Jimmy Alapag and Kelly Williams

Meralco: Asi Taulava and Macmac Cardona

Air21: Willie Miller

Powerade: Gary David

Rain or Shine: Gabe Norwood

Ginebra: Mark Caguioa

I hope the real list is revealed soon.

Oh wait.

Here it is!

The league just released the 15 players!

Kerby Raymundo, James Yap, Joe Devance, Ranidel De Ocampo, Kelly Williams, Asi Taulava, Reynel Hugnatan, Mark Caguioa, Danny Seigle, Sonny Thoss, Tony Dela Cruz, LA Tenorio, Jay-R Reyes, Gary David, and Gabe Norwood.

Here’s the problem!

Among the players in the list, we have Thoss, Tenorio, Dela Cruz, Devance, and Hugnatan. These five players were part of the Alaska squad at the start of the season and they received maximum contracts because they want more money. To lessen the salary cap struggle, Hugnatan went to the Bolts for Thiele who at this point, is not a heavy payload. The unfortunate part for the Aces is that Devance was traded for another max salary player in Jay-R Reyes.

This is why the Aces will have no choice but to send either LA Tenorio or Sonny Thoss elsewhere. Tenorio seems to be headed to B-Meg while Thoss can be the big threat Ginebra is yearning.

The Alaska owner has a valid reason for his rants. The current MVP of the league, Jimmy Alapag is not a max getter. The runners-up for the prize Petron’s Jay Washington and Arwind Santos are also not in the list.

Hell, I wonder how Talk N Text will solve Jason Castro’s contract negotiations because at this point, Castro wants to take his game and his worth on the next level!

If Uytengsu gives up on both players – the scariest thing will be inevitable.

I think it’s safe to say that Alaska is on their way out.  

Game over.