Be careful what you wish for - Alaska Aces
Alaska loses its first four assignments vs Dyip 117 - 110, Ginebra 102 - 83, San Miguel 109 - 83 and Meralco 101 - 75.
Alaska fans and players begged for a change and they get what they wanted. Alex Compton is actually a "million miles" better in coaching, leadership and as a teacher than Jeff Cariaso. (No offense)
Yes, Alex Compton was always short to get a championship for Alaska but he was actually overachieving - the roster he had was not the "best quality" available vs the giant teams, but yet he almost did it numerous times just by hard work and perseverance alone.
When Compton was fired, he gave his final advice to Alaska to get Mike Harris (former best import of the PBA), but Alaska choose Branden Dawson, unfortunately, he was over the height limit. Now, instead of choosing Mike Harris, Cariaso wanted to try something different, maybe to create his own identity - He tapped Justin Watts.
Watts is a pure shooting guard, the shooting guard position is the last thing you need for an import since they are already loaded with guards such as Banchero, Enciso, Ayaay, Galliguez, Casio and an anticipation return of Ahanmisi.
For whatever reason, Cariaso says "that is the idea to get a shooting guard import" and he's the only one who knows why they need it.
In the opening game, Watts scored 40 points vs Dyip but it was very evident that Alaska was lacking an offensive threat close to the basket, and Alston (import of Dyip) was the opposite of Watts and operates close to the basket.
Alston scored 38 points grabbed 22 rebounds. The guards of Dyip like CJ Perez and Macarthy enjoyed playing their roles as guards since their import was a natural small forward / power forward and it takes care of the possible offensive rebounds when they miss.
Alaska, on the other hand, loses the effectivity of its best local player Chris Banchero because Watts has the most opportunity to score and the problem was - as soon as they miss the offensive shots, they have no response to the presence of Alston in the rebounding department.
Just looking at Watts on his first game alone you can tell that it's almost impossible for him to score another 40 points and carry his team consistently. Watts is just a pure jump shooter and true enough on his second game vs Ginebra, he was shut down by Scottie Thomspon. Again, Alaska looked like midgets out there.
Alaska tried to bounce back vs San Miguel without Watts (got injured in practice) Alaska looked sharp in the first 2 quarters, everyone tried to step up and they actually looked better without Watts but they got got blown out at the 2nd half.
Meralco game - Alaska now decided to bring a new import Franko House, Franko House is a basketball and football player. (the teams out there are now bringing NBA caliber imports) and now Alaska decided to bring a football player. What a joke or what are they thinking?
Franko House was below average in his first game, he plays and moves like their rookie Gideon Babilonia - or maybe if Gideon played his minutes, Gideon may have contributed even more.
Take note that Alaska gave away one of the best and talented draft pool this 2019 for Ahanmisi to Rain or Shine. Click here for the full story
Jeff Cariaso calls this "growing pains" but it really looks like "experimentation pains" and Alaska will only hope that this experiment will work like Albert Einstein sooner or later.
