NO one who has seen Calvin Abueva in action, in just one game, will leave the hard court unmoved by the spectacle.
“Here’s a player obviously very talented, very physical. If only he could just play hard, tough basketball for 40 minutes,” Fred Lumba, a jaded basketball critic, told me in a chance meeting in Davao City.
“Why does he have to throw those sharp elbows like he’s throwing some grenade into the enemy? If he is more disciplined, I would change my mind about him,” Lumba sighed.
One time, he said, Abueva got a pass at the far corner, and with four bounding steps he sprinted in for a layup.
He had a clear lane, beating two guards who saw him rushing to the basket a moment too late.
Abueva soared, stuffed the ball with two hands, and stuck out his left leg. Except for that errant leg, he was perfect.
But because of it, talk has persisted that his talent has been stunted, like someone who has been caged for so long he doesn’t realize the beauty of sunlight.
The inimitable Fred Lumba concludes by saying, “He could be a loose cannonball on the floor.”
That might be too harsh a judgment on someone who has won titles for the Aces, who has disarmed and disemboweled the most powerful of opponents.
This kid knows how to win. It’s amazing how he has willed himself to do that in the face of a gallery sharply divided between applauding him and cursing him.
Alaska plays intensely different with him on the court, spearheading the defense up court, or just creating space under the offensive glass, pestering the other team’s tall men, pulling their jersey, bumping them off or sticking out elbows and legs.
Getting in the court against him must feel like being engaged in a wrestling match.
And because Abueva plays basketball like someone who has seen hard times on the hard court, and survived it all with his body and talent unscathed, he seems to outdo bigger opponents with his will and outfox them with his instinct to survive.
“The Beast,” they call him, and it seems appropriate.
Now he is making an impression in the Gilas Pilipinas team. Named a national team candidate for the first time, he didn’t reap outright acclaim and praise like a few others did.
Few probably even gave him a chance of making it to Tab Baldwin’s final dozen, not even when some of the stalwarts suddenly found excuses not to join the quintet.
But word from the Gilas tryout has it that “The Beast” has begun to overturn judgments stereotyping him as rough, even reckless. And not the least is Baldwin.
Even as he named Abueva to the pool, persuaded by the coaching staff to bring in “his physical talent,” Baldwin didn’t have him in the initial list of 26 candidates he had drawn up.
His doubts about Abueva ran deep. Does Abueva fit for instance in international competition?
At 6-feet-2, his obvious lack of size is one, especially in the power forward position. And doesn’t he need more seasoning to develop his game, and drop his ugly antics on the floor?
Abueva has turned Baldwin into a believer in less than two weeks of practice sessions in the tryouts.
Badlwin told Spin.ph in an interview, “There were doubts about his discipline and self-control, but so far he’s been outstanding.”
One that has turned Baldwin around was Abueva’s attitude and work ethic in training camp.
He’s called his work ethic excellent and his attitude exceptional.
Terrific adjectives for a player whom the public hardly knows, and from a former nonbeliever who has now confessed to seeing a “wonderful guy.”
“I really like him. I really, really like him,” Baldwin added, the double emphasis surprising many.
And he may have unwittingly confirmed that Abueva is now a shoo-in in his quintet by revealing his assessment of the Alaska ace.
“I really feel that this is a quality kid that belonged in the Gilas environment. Now that he is in there, it will be tough for anybody to get him out,” Baldwin said.
Abueva is a work in progress. He has in Baldwin’s view, the ability to be there.
His mental toughness could not be questioned because he is absolutely fearless—like the great Carlos Badion of Melbourne and Rome Olympics fame.
Physically, it is Abueva’s height that obviously will be a factor in determining whether he would be effective.
As early as November of last year, the former basketball great Freddie Webb thought Abueva is the “spark” that Gilas Pilipinas needs.
Someone who fights for loose balls without thinking about the pain to his body.
“He can guard big, he can guard small, he can bring the ball down, he can do a lot of things,” said Tomas Manotoc, the former Crispa grand-slam winning coach, in praise of Abueva.
“He can even play point guard.”He is multi-faceted, Tommy added, a quality that could make him rise above the other Gilas aspirants.
Baldwin has a diamond in the rough to work with. The ugly antics from the kid for now have dropped out of sight in training camp.
“As long as he understands that he plays for the country, he has to put all his personal agenda aside,” Baldwin says. ”…I think he understands that.”
Definitely Abueva has a lot to improve on, as Baldwin no doubt knows.
If he continues to work more on the toughness minus his recklessness, Abueva might just become an indispensable power source in a Gilas machine that is precisely in need of it.
In Changsa, China, next month, he will have his day on the court. We’re excited to see if he could bring luster to the national colors.