Mark Caguioa is not the MVP. He should have been.
Mark Caguioa deserves more the award, with an exclamation point. If everyone is saying that the primary reason is that Ginebra is not in the finals, it’s just like saying that Derrick Rose doesn’t deserve the MVP award in the NBA because of the same reason. How do we really define a Most Valuable Player??? Personally, it's all about how valuable to your team when your team is backed against the wall. Did any player, particularly from the grandslam aspirants, ever experienced that this year, with all their lopsided wins??? Did they ever exerted effort of winning games twice even without an import??? Where’s the “individual value” if your team is winning by playing together? How do you define most valuable when everybody has equal shares??? Shouldn’t it be that the whole team deserves the MVP trophy instead???
To lead a talented team is easy. To lead a depleted team for obscurity to splendor is something worth conferring. No amount of lobbying to the media can take away what Mark did the entire season, even to the PBA as a whole. Surely, Ginebra did not have the perfect team, but at least they had the heart to try to win games, even with a depleted line-up. That’s the main reason why they’re only team tagged with a never-say-die attitude. Ginebra didn’t even have the luxury of using the national team as a leverage to trade from other PBA teams to complete their line-up. In 2007, Mark had a chance for Philippine basketball glory in getting a rare semi-grandslam, but together with Eric Menk, Jayjay Helterbrand, and even Rudy Hatfield (who later deferred playing with the National Team due to personal problems), they sacrificed all that for their country.
This was not written to criticize the winner. I congratulate him, but I personally was not impressed with somebody who always lie down on the floor everytime he makes 3-point shots. If “standing up fast after a fall” would be a criterion, Mark Caguioa would have his share of ups and downs in his career, particularly playing excellently this year after recovering from injury and not exploiting the motto literally as on-court strategy.
Mark should have been the MVP, if not Arwind. I rest my case.
