Doubts clouded Barangay Ginebra’s campaign in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Season 50 Commissioner’s Cup when it opted to bring in Justin Brownlee as reinforcement.

At a height-restriction-free, import-laden conference, almost all of the teams scrambled to fly in giants, some even breaching seven feet. Everybody hired young and athletic imports.

But not the Kings.

Sticking to its 38-year-old resident import, easily the oldest in the batch of guest players, many thought Ginebra came into the tournament at a disadvantage.

It may look like it but head coach Tim Cone got it all figured out and Brownlee, who is barely 6-foot-7, is the perfect choice to halt a three-year, seven-conference title drought.

The David in the land of Goliaths brought his trusty slingshot and hit the bull’s eye to lead Ginebra back to glory in an epic Finals Game 7 victory over dethroned TNT in front of a record-breaking gate attendance at the Mall of Asia Arena on Wednesday night.

“We feel a little justified, you know, bringing Justin in and I think he had a little chip on his shoulder as well because he knows that’s what was going on,” Cone said in the aftermath of the Kings’ title-clinching, 88-76, win witnessed by a loud 24,617-strong crowd.

Brownlee’s 30-point, 14-rebound effort powered Ginebra to its 16th championship overall and more importantly, gave the naturalized Filipino his seventh PBA career title that moved him on top of the all-time list of winningest league reinforcements.

He surpassed the six of legendary import Sean Chambers back in the 90’s for Alaska under Cone.

“And he just, again, proved himself that he’s the Goat (greatest of all time) of all imports. I mean, it’s hard to argue against it,” Cone said.

“I mean, there’s some Tony Harris’ out there, Norman Black, Sean Chambers, you know, many others. But it’s hard to argue against the winningest import of all time. He is the winningest import of all time,” he added about the now four-time Best Import.

Strategic advantage

On paper, pitting Brownlee against the likes of Tropang 5G’s Chris McCullough, earlier with 7-foot-3 and fellow ex-National Basketball Association (NBA) player Bol Bol, Rain or Shine’s Jaylen Johnson and Phoenix’s Johnathan Williams, among others, is a suicide mission.

“Well, I know, I mean, you know, I’m aware of what’s going on in social media and what people say. I mean, I’m not a guy that sits there for, you know, five hours and watches social media, but I do try to keep up a little bit. I want to know what people are saying and thinking. Some of it can be pretty harsh, but, you know, there’s oftentimes there’s truth to it,” Cone said.

But the master strategist in Cone saw Brownlee’s height disadvantage as a weapon against his taller counterparts. He knew other teams would favor ceiling in the unlimited height contest but at the same time sacrifice agility and quickness.

Brownlee has both and uses them to his advantage.

By design, Cone wanted opponents to think their imports were matching up against Brownlee but on court, they were forced to put locals to guard the Ginebra reinforcement.

It was easy picking for the tireless and seasoned workhorse.

“Why are we bringing Justin back? You know, he’s 38, you know, he’s the smallest import. And I’ve always said I think Justin has an easier time against bigger imports than he does against smaller imports. And just because he’s unmatchable, the bigger imports can’t guard him,” Cone said.

“So, it’s always comes down to a local trying to guard him and that’s a constant matchup problem for the other teams.”

Brownlee did just that in the finals when he tormented his local TNT defenders like RR Pogoy with an average of 36.5 points per game.

He even recorded back-to-back 50-plus games.

Brownlee tied the all-time championship game-high of 54 points first reached by Harris for Swift back in the 1993 Governors’ Cup finals when he led Ginebra to a 100-95 overtime win in Game 5. He would then score 52 in a Game 6 loss.

“We see Justin every day. We see how much he works. You know, he hasn’t changed at all from the age of 38 to 25. He still does the same work every day, all the time, shows up at every practice, never asked him to sit out. He does all the work,” Cone said.

Humble as always

Brownlee has been with the team since 2016 and amid all the titles he contributed to the franchise, he remains grounded.

In fact, he deflected the championship credit to his teammates especially to the Kings’ frontline for holding court.

“Man, I got to give a lot of credit to guys like Japheth (Aguilar), Troy (Rosario), Norbert (Torres), Isaac (Go), who else? I’m forgetting somebody. Just all the bigs. I think they did a great job,” he said.

“There were big imports this conference, in the Commission’s Cup. Without those guys, this wouldn’t be possible.”

Brownlee also admitted that moving up to being the winningest import in the league is just surreal.

“It feels great. If you would’ve told me 10 years ago that I’d still be playing at this level, playing for the championship, I probably would have not believed it,” he said.

“But I’ve been blessed to play for a great team, a great coach, great bosses in RSA (San Miguel Corporation chief Ramon S. Ang) and (Ginebra governor) Boss Al (Chua) I thank them for giving me the opportunity to play,” Brownlee added.

“It’s just amazing. It’s amazing to be playing in front of a huge number of fans every game. They always come with great energy. I just feel very grateful and I appreciate everything.”