Juan Gomez de Liaño is a rookie. That’s the label. It’s also, increasingly, the least accurate thing about him.
The Converge FiberXers super rookie is the PBA Press Corps Player of the Week for October 14 to 18, the fifth time he has won the citation, after a pair of performances that helped the FiberXers close out the eliminations in style. Converge beat the Macau Giant Pandas in a blowout and edged the TNT Tropang 5G in overtime to finish 8-4 and grab the No. 3 seed in Group A heading into the PBA Governors’ Cup playoffs. Plenty of heroes stepped up. None stood out like Juan Gomez de Liaño.
Juan Gomez de Liaño Is Rewriting the Record Books
Start with the Macau game. Gomez de Liano did everything in Converge’s 162-108 rout of the Giant Pandas, finishing with a triple-double of 13 points, 11 rebounds, and 12 assists. It was his fifth triple-double of the season, and by the PBA’s own stats chief, Fidel Mangonon III, that number matters. It’s the most ever by a freshman. It’s the most since Ginebra import Justin Brownlee also had five three seasons ago. And it’s the most by a local since the legendary Ramon Fernandez in 1984.
Think about that company. Brownlee. Fernandez. And a rookie.
The night also produced franchise records for Converge: most points in a game, biggest winning margin at 54, and most assists with 53. That last number tells the story. When your point guard is a playmaker of this caliber, everyone eats.
Clutch When It Mattered
The Macau game was a statement. The TNT game was a test.
Two nights later, the Gilas Pilipinas playmaker came back with 22 points and 8 assists as the FiberXers wrested a 114-112 overtime win from the Tropang 5G. They trailed in the fourth. He hit a clutch four-point basket in the fightback and then set up Alec Stockton to force a deadlock in regulation. In overtime, he made another pivotal assist to Stockton and hit a key jumper as Converge unleashed a 6-2 closing run in the last 2:39 to steal the win.
That’s the difference between a good rookie and a great one. Good rookies pile up numbers in blowouts. Great ones find the right pass, or the right shot, when the game is on the line.
The Competition
The weekly award wasn’t a gimme. Juan Gomez de Liaño edged out Barangay Ginebra San Miguel’s Scottie Thompson, whose 29-point, 10-rebound, 6-assist effort helped the crowd darlings revive their quarterfinal drive with a 106-89 rout of the Phoenix Fuel Masters. JGDL’s own teammate, Stockton, was also in the mix after the scoring outburst that helped beat TNT.
That Juan Gomez de Liaño still came out on top says it all.
