Failed experiment?

The Commissioner’s Cup of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) is entering its crucial stretch, but its guest team — the Macau Black Knights — is not expected to board the bus headed for the playoffs.

Well, Macau’s campaign has been a disaster.

Supposedly, they were set to parade two imports in Sam Deguara and Tony Mitchell. But the plan fizzled out when the league imposed a rule that they cannot deploy both reinforcements at the same time.

Instead of staying to serve as a reserve, the 7-foot-6 Deguara packed his bags for a more lucrative offer in Taiwan, prompting the Black Knights to roll with Mitchell, who is no stranger to PBA action.

After opening the conference with three straight losses, the Black Knights tapped Marcus Elliott to replace their head coach Garrett Kelly. Sideliners saw it as a head-scratching move as the 42-year-old Elliott came in with no professional coaching experience despite having a successful playing career around the world.

Despite Elliott’s appointment, victory remained elusive for the Black Knights. At one point, they had to play with only nine players as the rest of the roster left for various commitments elsewhere. That’s how painful Macau’s campaign was.

Then last Saturday, the tension that was quietly simmering underneath finally blew out in the open. Macau’s best player, Damian Chongqui, pulled off a stunt as he walked out minutes before the final buzzer of their frustrating 84-102 loss to struggling Terrafirma.

No, Chongqui didn’t leave the venue like a respected statesman. In fact, he stormed out of the Ninoy Aquino Stadium without his shirt on, sending a very strong message that things are definitely not going well for this troubled ballclub. When asked about the stunt, Elliott just scratched his head, saying: I don’t know.

All in all, Macau has posted only two wins in 11 games. So when the dust of this import-flavored conference finally settles, the Black Knights will be remembered not for their brilliant performance but for the sloppy plays, roster instability, locker-room drama and an angry, shirtless star walking out of the venue.

On paper, the idea of having a guest team was a stroke of a genius. Aside from raising the level of play and boosting the interest of fans with players whom they have never seen before, inviting foreign teams also gives our local stars a chance to experience a different brand of basketball.

That brilliant concept was on full display two years ago when the Bay Area Dragons, powered by a pair of quality imports in Andrew Nicholson and Myles Powell and a world-class coach in Brian Goorjian, played as a guest team. They pushed the country’s most popular squad, Barangay Ginebra, to the limit before surrendering the Commissioner’s Cup title.

The Ginebra-Bay Area duel was so intense that Game 7 of its championship series, which was held at the Philippine Arena, drew 54,589 fans — a record that now seems impossible to shatter.

The following year, the league invited a guest team anew. However, Hong Kong Eastern had a forgettable performance, posting only seven wins in 12 matches before making a quarterfinal exit to end at seventh place in the Commissioner’s Cup ranking.

With Hong Kong and Macau failing to match the performance of Bay Area, does it mean that the league’s concept of having a guest team in the midseason conference was a failed experiment? Definitely not.

The PBA is a league built on the fierce rivalry and loyalty of its fans. Fielding an outside force only works if that team brings a level of play that commands respect. When guest teams consistently fail to make the playoffs or exit in the first round with a whimper, they are reduced to a mere footnote in PBA history rather than a chapter of excellence.

If the PBA wants to keep on having guest teams, it has to come up with a tighter screening process to make sure that what it is bringing is a team of lions, not a group of lambs.