I don’t know what happened to the PBA career of Jeric Teng.
I thought for sure he’s going to be a first round pick in the 2013 PBA Draft.
His heroics almost pushed the UST Growling Tigers to UAAP heaven for two consecutive seasons. He fine-tuned his craft in the PBA D-League. Hell, he was virtually endorsed by McDo and Jessy Mendiola as a virtual franchise face.
Jeric Teng did the moves to garner value as a player as well as an endorser.
And yet, we saw Jeric Teng get picked behind James Forrester, Isaac Holstein, and Ryan Buenafe and would languish on the deep parts of the bench of Rain or Shine and Kia.
Kia…
Ugh.
So wrong in so many levels.
Hopefully Jeron Teng’s career would become better. He played college ball for a SMC-affiliated squad, would frequent international tourneys as part of Mighty Sports, would hang with other second generation ballers in 3v3 tilts, and now uses Gilas Pilipinas to further his pro career.
If these moves can’t lead to a successful basketball career… I don’t know what will.
So Jeron Teng is on board for the PBA Draft. I say this is great. He’s going to enter the draft as a 23-year-old, two-time UAAP champion who made the league’s Mythical Five four times. While playing high school ball, Teng exploded for 104 points for Xavier. At 6’2, Teng can play the wing spots with a penchant to board – one trait Jeric Teng never had even in college. Having those traits handed to him by his Robocop dad should give him a more successful pro career.
Now acquiring Teng is a happy adventure for the lucky gambler. Since he’s not really affiliated to anyone, he could either be a shoo-in for Gilas Pilipinas play from here on out OR a player that would exploit the absence of the Gilas Pilipinas players to lead his PBA team to victory.
Paul Lee, Terrence Romeo, and Calvin Abueva are notable names who shrugged flag Gilas duties as amateurs and their awesome pro play got them to where they are now. Jeron Teng could follow their footsteps. Who knows?
A team like Blackwater could use another offensive anchor. Even if they have Allein Maliksi, they could go for Teng when the opportunity presents itself. Ditto for Kia if they try to swerve their adversaries. Like I said, Teng is just 23. If they want to, they can build up their squad with a young star than to develop it with a 28-year-old international game veteran who’ll probably hate the team’s losing spell. I can even see Star trying for snatch him using Mark Barroca or Jio Jalalon or even Paul Lee as trade baits if this would lead to their new and improved version of James Yap.
And if he lands to either Meralco or NLEX, I hope he ends up in Meralco since Yeng Guiao is partially responsible on how Jeric Teng’s career turned out.
But then, the events that unfolded on his brother could be Jeron Teng’s quandary. Rumors have surfaced and I don’t want to go into details. Whatever it is, it gave brother Jeric limited playing time even if his numbers are exceptional despite the said restrictions. Over the course of time, he was left unsigned by ROS and as mentioned earlier, Chris Gavina would rather use Jackson Corpuz and Bong Galanza than him. It sucks because for a UST guy, it sucks that Jervy Cruz, Dylan Ababou, Teng, Jeric Fortuna, and hell… even Kevin Ferrer are stuck in this kind of bind.
Still, I see Jeron Teng as a top four player. Good for him that the draft isn’t as deep as one would perceive. He’s probably going to be top three if Ravena opts out of the draft. Maybe he’s going to get rookie crap at the start of his pro campaign but mind you he’s going to get out of it sooner than you think.
PROJECT SYDRIFIED WP 