I had to come out from blogging semi-retirement to pose
something about Doug Kramer.
I never saw him as a superstar but he can start in the PBA.
I guess he could have been more if he didn’t bounce from team to team. Selected
fifth overall in the 2007 PBA Draft behind Joe Devance, Sam Eman, Ryan Reyes
and JC Intal and ahead of players like JR Quinahan, Jonas Villanueva, Ronjay
Buenafe, Ryan Arana and Jojo Duncil, Kramer changed jerseys a total of nine
times. Just imagine of Kramer played for one team in one decade? As a Powerade
Tiger, Kramer averaged in double digits for both points and rebounds in the
Philippine Cup. Clearly, Doug Kramer is a better scorer than Dorian Pena and
the latter had a couple of Mythical Team citations to show because he played
for San Miguel for nearly a decade.
Anyway, Kramer feasted on rebounds and putbacks for twelve
seasons… and he’ll probably display the same intensity as either a businessman
or an on-air personality. We have seen the Kramers front the world of
television and online media and as far as fallbacks go, this is an awesome
post-basketball start-up.
I guess the only thing that sucks about his retirement is
that he failed to get his point across to the college teams. Kramer famously
said in an interview that he does not support foreign exchange students. This
is not a case of racial discrimination but more of big man development in the
PBA. Through the years, we have heard critics of all shapes and sizes. They all
blurt out the same goddamn song on how undersized the Filipinos are in
international play. Kramer is right when he said that players need all the
exposure and confidence to make it big. It affected Philippine basketball then
and it still affects Philippine basketball now. June Mar Fajardo is the reigning
and defending PBA MVP but he played college outside of Manila. Greg Slaughter
is another titan who started his career in CESAFI before moving to the UAAP.
Christian Standhardinger played ball outside the country and if you think about
it, players like JP Erram and Troy Rosario had to do further conditioning to
get their way in the PBA.
Kramer’s Phoenix Pulse’s teammate Jason Perkins spent his
last year in La Salle as a seldom-used second stringer to give way of Ben Mbala…
and he is the reigning PBA Rookie of the Year.
The top three teams of the current UAAP season had the likes
of UP’s Bright Akhuetie, Ateneo’s Angelo Kouame and UST’s foreign exchange
student and reigning UAAP MVP Soulemane Chabi Yo. In the NCAA, San Beda has
Donald Tankoua and Lyceum has Mike Nzeusseu.
I guess this makes it more awesome for Letran to play for
the title since they are doing it with Larry Muyang on board.
Again, I am not trying to be discriminatory but the foreign
exchange students like Sam Ekwe, Sudan Daniel, Emmanuel Mbe, Karim Abdul, Ola
Adeogun and Ben Mbala are banned to play in the PBA as locals. So aside from
Muyang… which local big man are we going to push to the moon and help for the
development of Pinoy basketball? Sure, one can argue that
Anyway, it’s hard to place Kramer as a top PBA player given
his awards and accomplishments but it’s not like he’s going to go down as a
bust. But as I mentioned earlier, he could have had a better career if he had a
couple more titles, a couple of all-star citations and an extended stint with
one team.
END
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