Sports Weekly Magazine
July 14-21, 1978
Even the guys from the other camp, notably Filmanbank Coach Lauro Mumar and Big Billy Robinson, concede that at this stage a week away from the balloting, only a “major disaster” can sidetrack. Toyota’s Sonny Jaworski from running away with the most valuable player of the 1978 PBA All-Filipino.
“He’s got it made,” says Robinson, the Filmanbank slotman who, if he had been a Filipino, probably would have offered the Toyota court general a tight run down the wire in the race for the most coveted individual award in a series generally conceded as the PBA’s most prestigious.
Robinson observed that for a while before Crispa missed out in the finals of the PBA first conference, it looked as if the deposed defending champs’ two most devastating performers this season, Philip Cezar and Atoy Co, would be crowding Jaworski for the honors. But, Billy said, with Toyota in the title picture and Crispa out of it. “Jaworski has got the field all by himself.”
Replying to the hypothetical question as to who in his view would be the Crispa player likely to press Jaworski for MVP honors if the Redmanizers had gone all the way, Robinson surprisingly picked Co.
And why Co when the general consensus appears to swing towards Cezar?
“Let’s put it this way, man,” said Robinson, “Crispa can win without Cezar, but it definitely can’t win without Co.”
It’s the same thing, he said, in the case of Toyota. “Without Sonny,” he said, “Toyota isn’t the same.”
As for Coach Mumar, he would rather fall back on his statistics in his choice of Jaworski as PBA All-Filipino MVP.
“It’s all there from the time the conference started,” said Mumar, “and with what Sonny has compiled in terms of awesome statistics to underscore his claim to the honor, it would seem as if only a major disaster can stop him from making it as MVP.”
And indeed, a study of the Toyota superstar’s performance chart shows how from the time the first conference started last April and all the way to Toyota’s ouster of Crispa in last week’s sudden death match between the two ballclubs for the last finals berth, Jaworski had proven himself the league’s most outstanding all-around player.
In seven games played in the first round, the 31-year old two-time Olympian was seventh in the list of scoring leaders with a 21.43 average per game. In free throws, he held the 12th place with an 81.48 conversion average from the 15-foot line. In rebounds, he ranked next to topnotcher Manny Paner of Great Taste Discoverers with a 14.14 average per game. In assists, he topped the field with an average of 7.71 assists per game. He also figured in the first round’s list of players with most steals and interceptions, his 1.43 average for this department of the game earning him a fifth-place ranking.
Also for the first round, Jaworski ranked fourth in the list of players with the highest time exposure with his 38.41 minute per game average.
In the second round, Jaworski went down from seventh to eight in field goal scoring although his average for the stretch – 21.71 – was higher than his first round average. In free throws, Jaworski remained among the league’s top 31 foul shooters, his 82.35 average earning him a tenth-place ranking.
In rebounding, Jaworski was the highest Filipino rebounder, his average of 13.57 per game only bested by Billy Robinson’s 21.62 and Cisco Oliver’s 15.57. In assists, Jaworski remained the top man with his average of 9.57 per game. In steals, he held seventh place in the second round with 1.86 average. In time exposure, Jaworski was second only to Robinson with his 39.51 average per game.
Going over the Jaworski chart with Sports Weekly, Coach Mumar had only one word to describe it: awesome.
And “awesome” it really has been – the Big J’s performance in a PBA series that had seen the Toyota Tamaraws survive a round of four crisis that for a while, had threatened to lay to waste Jaworski’s almost undisputed claim to the league’s highest individual honor for its 1978 season.
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