The Final Score: Mark Caguioa is not the MVP, and he's just fine

Source: gmanews.tv

Hindi na nga umabot sa PBA Finals, hindi pa napili bilang MVP. It sounds like a double-right-hook to the head. Enough to make the mohawked one a forlorn figure in a crowd of MVP candidates. Although Mark Caguioa's shirt during the Awards Night was gray, his mood clearly wasn't. Because for Caguioa, winning the MVP trophy mattered less than regaining a relevant basketball career.

"To tell you the truth, years ago, I was really looking forward to getting the MVP," Caguioa says. "Right now, I'm just focused more on winning games, being more consistent and staying healthy."

There is no singular formula in choosing MVP's. We can't even agree on how much value to place on numbers, votes, impact or importance. These seem to change every year anyway.

I understand why people think Caguioa should be MVP. Where would decimated Ginebra be without him? Yet I also understand why Jimmy Alapag is a worthy winner. Even if teammate Jason Castro can destroy opponents in ways Jimmy can't or can no longer do.

Value, as in the word "valuable", is not a finite concept. We can always rework the math. Forty percent for this. Thirty percent for that. Then rearrange all of it next year. But it has to always converge with our definition of "value". It's a personal measurement.

Caguioa has the numbers to back his claim (or at least the claim made by people on his behalf). Alapag's numbers are nowhere near as impressive. While Caguioa was a huge reason Ginebra reached one Finals and nearly made another, Alapag is a significant reason Talk 'N Text is two wins away from a Grand Slam.

If Alapag is perceived as some symbolic choice for MVP -- someone who personifies how Talk 'N Text win games, someone who embodies team play, I'm fine with it. Mark, I bet, is fine with it too. In 2010-2011, after all, it wasn't Caguioa against Alapag, Caguioa against Santos or Caguioa against the world. It was Caguioa against Caguioa. You're screaming Mark should've won MVP because, sa totoo lang, Caguioa, even if Ginebra failed to win a championship, won a more essential personal battle.

"I'm just so thankful that I'm playing basketball again," Caguioa says. "I'm playing! I'm running around the court, playing defense, shooting the ball. That's something to be thankful for."

So fret not for the once-cantankerous Caguioa. He's back in form. He's back on top. Thirty-one and going strong. He's back competing for MVP awards when he once wondered if he could sink pull-up jumpers again. Alapag's MVP trophy was chiseled out of Jimmy's leadership and his team's incredible success. Caguioa's MVP-caliber year was hammered out of a player's dogged resurgence.

"Really, I tell them don't worry, don't worry about me," Caguioa says about Ginebra fans clamoring for MVP justice. "I'm playing basketball, playing in front of the fans and giving them a great show. I really don't care about that award at all. (Smiles) I really don't."