Seeing RJ Abarrientos, last season’s Rookie of the Year, making buckets with almost at ease, wasn’t surprising at all.
His uncle, the great Johnny Abarrientos, the smallest player ever to win the Most Valuable Player award, explained that before RJ turned professional player, the young cager was a shooting guard first and being a facilitator was secondary.
“He was a shooting guard,” the elder Abarrientos told The Manila Times, referring to his nephew’s style of play back when he was playing for the Far Eastern University Tamaraws.
“But because he’s too small to play in the PBA, I advised him to change his style of play and develop his game to become more of a point guard because he won’t survive in the pros if he’ll stick with his shooting.”
The younger Abarrientos’ transition of becoming a point guard wasn’t created overnight as his game would evolve gradually, first when he became a part of the younger version of the Gilas Pilipinas team coached then by Tab Baldwin at the height of the pandemic and composed of players outside the professional circuit.
Johnny, the 1996 MVP, which also keyed Alaska’s grand slam campaign that same season, saw how RJ became a good player.
“Growing up, I didn’t even had a chance coaching him, personally,” said Johnny. “Although, he would ask for my advice on embarking a future in basketball, that if he’s really indeed serious about it, I might be able to help him. Most of the time, he would go home with a trophy after winning in tournaments. ”
“But the truth is, I never had a chance to coach him, not until I became an assistant coach again at Ginebra and got reunited with Coach Tim (Cone). My assignment, obviously, is to help fast track the improvement of RJ.”
In Ginebra’s playoff debut this season against Converge, an all-important match for the league’s most popular team, RJ went back to being a scorer as he knocked in 6-of-8 three-point shots on his way to finishing with a career-high 35 points as the Gin Kings beat the FiberXers, 105-85, to live for another day.
On Sunday, Abarrientos will have to score more once again and Cone believes he needs to do it a lot more than being just a pure point guard.
Coaching RJ was like a déjà vu for the winningest coach in PBA history and the young Abarrientos had to be reminded at how good he is as a basketball player.
“I had the same problem oftentimes with his uncle, Johnny, in the past. They wanted to be point guards, pure point guards. But both of them are really capable scorers. They need to be reminded to take a few shots. But his DNA is to be a point guard and set people up, but he’s got a lot of ability than just your normal point guard.”
Having the scorer’s mentality has been already ingrained on the younger Abarrientos, but his uncle is looking at a bigger picture in helping him turn into a great player.
“He needs to play good defense and I have that responsibility of helping him become one, now that we’re together in one team,” added the elder Abarrientos. “No offense to RJ, but back when I was still at the peak of my career, my opponents were having nightmares each time they would face me and Alaska because they know, they will have a difficult time bringing down the basketball.”
“You cannot dribble in front of me because I would easily take it away. In the case of RJ, he needs to develop becoming a tougher defender because there were instances that he’s being bullied by bigger, stronger guards. During my time, I was the smallest player, but I found my biggest edge on the defensive end.”
True enough, throughout his playing career, Johnny would retire as the all-time leader in steals (1,358) while also ending up fourth in the all-time assists leaders behind Robert Jaworski, Mon Fernandez and Dindo Pumaren.
Seeing RJ blossoming as a future star player was truly a joy to watch, but his transformation would only be completed if he turns out to become a solid-two way player in the years to come.
Source: RJ’s evolution
