The two things held most sacred in Philippine sports are basketball and Manny Pacquiao. And in a short period of time, Daniel Orton managed to offend both of those.
Orton, an NBA journeyman who had played for the University of Kentucky, came to the Philippine Basketball Association with much promise and expectation. The Purefoods Star Hotshots, which last year had completed a rare Grand Slam championship – winning all three conferences in a season – had been addled by injuries and settled for a disappointing seventh-place finish in this season’s Philippine Cup.
For the season’s other two conferences, teams are allowed to recruit a single international player – a ringer in essence – to bolster their local corps. The team had looked to the 6-foot-9 Orton to turn the franchise’s fortunes around.
But in the PBA, where the elimination round lasts just 11 games before playoffs start, there is no time for an adjustment period.
Following a disappointing loss to the cellar-dwelling KIA Carnival on 18 February, the Oklahoma City native let loose his emotions, faulting the referees for the foul trouble that limited him to just six points on 1-for-7 shooting in 19 minutes.
“This game was seriously a joke,” he said. “The way the game was going the refs made it into a mockery, seriously. They took the game that I know and love and made it into a mockery.”
And then he turned his sights to KIA’s famous player-coach, eight-division boxing champion Manny Pacquiao.
“Professional boxer, yeah OK. Congressman, alright. Professional basketball player? No. It’s a joke. Seriously, it’s a joke.”
Matters went from bad to worse there. Orton was summoned to the commissioner’s office and fined P250,000 ($5,674 USD) for “issuing comments that are disparaging, disrespectful of, and offensive to his host league, the game officials, and a fellow player and head coach of a member team,” said the league’s PBA media bureau chief Willie Marcial.
Orton had hoped to redeem himself in the team’s next game but never got the chance. He was replaced in favor of the team’s former import Denzel Bowles and departed quietly.
“I thank God for my time in the Philippines and thank Purefoods for everything,” Orton tweeted.
Orton’s tenure – which lasted little over a week – started out with promise. After wrapping up his stint with the Sichuan Blue Whales of the Chinese Basketball Association, Orton replaced temporary import Marqus Blakely and led Purefoods to their fourth straight win of the Commissioner’s Cup, routing the credible NLEX Road Warriors by 25 on 11 February. The team lost its first game of the conference three days later to the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters, though Orton performed well with 23 points, 23 rebounds and 7 blocks.
The Rain or Shine loss was excusable; the loss to KIA was unforgivable.
PBA fans and management alike have – some would say unreasonably – high expectations for their imports. Players can score 40 points one day and be sent home after the next game. After the loss to Rain or Shine, Purefoods were already calling for the return of Blakely.
“There is a lot of expectations for the imports because you can produce and get sent home,” said Eric Wise, who played six games for the PBA’s Barako Bull Energy Cola team. “It’s all about winning. Stats don’t mean anything if you are not winning.”
Still, Purefoods’ coach Tim Cone insists that the decision had more to do with Orton’s comments than anything else.
“With the controversy with Daniel and everything, it was just too difficult for us to try to justify him staying,” Cone told local television station Interaksyon.
Orton’s position about Pacquiao’s involvement with the 40-year-old league isn’t an unpopular belief, even domestically. He was named team coach and drafted himself 11th overall last year, despite having no collegiate or PBA D-League experience, becoming the league’s oldest rookie ever at 35. He later selected his cousin Rene Pacquiao in the third round. In four games Pacquiao has missed all six of his shot attempts, scoring his lone point on a free throw.
PBA commissioner Chito Salud admitted at the season’s kickoff press conference: “Manny is just fulfilling his dreams.”
The league has been known to have little tolerance for controversy with its import players. When former New York Knick Renaldo Balkman choked his Petron Blaze Boosters teammate Arwind Santos in 2013, the league handed him a P250,000 fine and banned him from the league.
On 25 February, Pacquiao took to the court despite protests that he should not risk an in-game injury ahead of his 2 May super-fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. He played just six and a half minutes and missed his only two shots yet his team managed to topple another perennial contender in the Talk ‘N Text Tropang Texters.
Pacquiao’s play has yet to demonstrate that he belongs on a professional team, but the curiosity of international media outlets has given attention to the league that it never could’ve attained otherwise.
The confluence of the Philippines’ two sporting loves continues to spark as much controversy as it does adoration.
Was Orton dismissed for his remarks against Pacquiao? Yes. Was it the sole reason? No.
