Ultimate All-star Showdown: MVP vs SMC

Over the weekend, the MVP Sports Foundation made the unthinkable happen by bringing over a star-studded line-up for two exhibition games at the newly-christened Smart-Araneta Coliseum. It's been covered on ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, CNNSI, etc. primarily because of the amount of talent that came over. The Drew League in LA has seen stars drop in one-at-a-time, and the same things have happened in numerous Pro-Am leagues and Charity events, but never has a game seen a set of players with some many individual accolades:



2 League MVPs, 2 Scoring Champions, 3 Rookies of the Year, 2 5-time NBA Champions... and the list goes on!



Rave reviews of the basketball scene from fellow players, authors such as Rafe Bartholomew and countless sports company execs, not to mention a big pay day could have them hop on the next flight over to Manila. Also, now that there has been a precedent, making it happen a second time around probably wouldn't be as difficult.



Just to spark some thought into this, what if the San Miguel Corporation, a rival of the MVP group, would bring over a set of all-stars on their own. Who would they bring? And perhaps the better question, who would win in a Smart vs SMC battle?

1. Lebron James - Easy pick. LeBron vs. Kobe should happen. Why not in Manila?

2. Dwight Howard - Adidas needs Dwight here because D-Rose was with Smart.

3. Carmelo Anthony - Melo is the only one who could score with the ease of KD.

4. Rajon Rondo - Matches up with CP3 - assists, steals, boards

5. Steph Curry - Steph vs. Reke for the best scoring combo guard position.

6. Jodie Meeks - Meeks vs. the Beard shooting 3s while spotting in the corners

7. Andre Miller - the only other slow PG who Sol Mercado will again try to take advantage of

8. Darrell Arthur - young 3/4 with great athleticism to match up with Derrick Williams

9. Kyrie Irving - will probably be burned if he ends up matching up w/ Rose/CP3/Evans.

Clearly, advantage to this team is the Dwight vs. McGee match up. But to make things even, this team will clearly have a weaker back court opposed to the Rose-Paul-Evans-Fisher combination.

So who do you think will take this match up?

UAAP: Veterans vs Rookies

The first week of the UAAP is done. After a rainy, yet impressive opening ceremonies (that needed better camera angles), a week of the season is finally completed. The rains were not able to dampen the fireworks of week 1 though. Just a quick recap!

1. FEU starts off the season with a big win over DLSU.

2. AdMU holds AdU scoreless in the last 7 minutes.

3. Kobe Bryant plays with a UAAP selection in an FEU jersey.

4. UST and NU go on a shootout in the 4th quarter and overtime.

5. UP wins!

6. AdU bounces back to beat FEU soundly by 19.

7. Ateneo - La Salle Round 1 & Kiefer Ravena

8. Ray Parks goes for 30.

9. UE goes nuts in a blitz but falls short.

Photo courtesy of getblued.multiply.com

Now, most of the headlines so far are pointed to how this year's rookie class is seemingly stating their claim that the future is already here. The hype train for these talents isn't slowing down, and it leaves me wondering: Is the UAAP still owned by the veterans of the rooks?

So here's what I am going to do. I will keep tally of the Best Players of Each Game until the end of the season. Maybe then, we can decide if the torch has already been passed or experience still rules out:

FEU v DLSU: Aldrech Ramos (16 pts, 8 rebs, 2 asts, 2 stls, 1 blk) - Vets
AdMU v AdU: Greg Slaughter (23 pts, 8 rebs, 2 asts, 2 blks) - Rooks

UST v NU: Jeric Fortuna (23 pts, 3 3fgm, 6 rebs, 2 asts, 1 stl) - Vets

UP v UE: Mike Gamboa (19 pts, 4 3fg, 5 rebs, 6 asts, 2 stls) - Vets

AdU v FEU: Alex Nuyles (22 pts, 3 rebs, 2 asts) - Vets

AdMU v DLSU: Kiefer Ravena (24 pts, 10 rebs, 2 asts, 5 stls) - Rooks

NU v UP: Ray Parks (30 pts, 3 3fg, 9 rebs, 3 asts, 2 stls) - Rooks

UST v UE: Kevin Ferrer (19 pts, 3 3fg, 5 rebs, 1 stl) - Rooks

Veterans: 4

Rookies: 4

Let's see how the rest of the season goes!