Fajardo deflects personal glory

June Mar Fajardo of San Miguel Beer refused to walk to center-court alone as soon as his name was mentioned as the winner of the Philippine Basketball Association Best Player of the Conference (BPC) plum.

Instead, he gathered the Beermen and asked them to join him in receiving the citation.

“Credit goes to my teammates and the coaching staff. They made it possible for me to reach that,” said Fajardo, the gentle giant from Cebu.

The 6-foot -10 Fajardo is arguably the most dominant player of this generation.

Aside from winning seven consecutive BPC title, he also has four Most Valuable Player awards under his belt, matching the achievement tallied by legends like Ramon Fernandez and Alvin Patrimonio.

And as if the seven BPC and a potential five MVP crowns aren’t enough, Fajardo also achieved a golden milestone when he formally barged into the elite 5,000-point club after scoring 15 points in Game 4 of their Commissioner’s Cup best-of-seven title showdown.

He made it to the club in just 287 games, nearly matching the mark of registered by Ginebra’s Mark Caguioa who did it in just 279 games in 2007.

But all of those milestones went down the drain as Fajardo and the rest of the Beermen absorbed a 30-point beating from the Kings that turned the series into a virtual race-to-two affair.

Fajardo said personal glory no longer excites him.

“Those awards are the last thing on my mind,” he said. “It’s over. We already lost the game. We just have to re-group and bounce back. We have to work doubly hard to achieve it because the title winning is not an easy process.”