PBA to expand honor roll

The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) is set to induct more names into its list of Greatest Players when the league celebrates its 50th anniversary next year.

PBA commissioner Willie Marcial said that 10 players will be selected to join other retired and still-active PBA stars in the elite club of the best and most influential cagers that have seen action in Asia’s first professional basketball league.

“We’re adding 10 more so that we’ll now have 50 Greatest (PBA players),” Marcial said.

“This is going to be a part of the festivities for our 50th anniversary.”

A selection committee will screen and deliberate the deserving players to be honored.

“We’re going to create a committee two months before the anniversary. We’ll have a selection committee and then form an additional one,” Marcial added.

The PBA, founded in 1975 with its first game played on 9 April featuring Mariwasa-Noritake and Concepcion Carrier at the Araneta Coliseum, has named 40 Greatest Players in two batches.

Led by legends Robert Jaworski and Ramon Fernandez, the league honored the first batch known as the 25 Greatest Players in PBA History in 2000. Eighteen names on the list were elected to the PBA Hall of Fame.

Fifteen more were selected to join the first 25, including still-active veterans James Yap, Kelly Williams and Jayson Castro to commemorate the PBA’s 40th anniversary in 2015.

Aside from the 50 Greatest Players, Marcial bared that more programs and activities will be announced soon leading up to half a century of PBA excellence.

The PBA commissioner also announced some groundbreaking innovations for the coming 49th season.

‘We’re adding 10 more so that we’ll now have 50 Greatest (PBA players).’

The league will revert to a three-conference calendar after shelving the Governors’ Cup in the ongoing season to give way to the country’s hosting of the FIBA World Cup and the national team’s successful gold medal finish in the Hangzhou Asian Games last year.

Season 49 will kick off with the import-laden Governors’ Cup in August.

The first conference will implement a pool, double-round robin format with the 12 teams divided into two groups with six squads each playing 10 games per bracket. The top four teams will advance to the crossover playoffs.

While the Governors’ Cup has a 6-foot-6 height restriction on reinforcements, the mid-season Commissioner’s Cup will have no height limit for imports.

The Philippine Cup will close out the season.