The veteran big man will be out for quite some time.
The knee injury sustained by Japeth Aguilar in Barangay Ginebra San Miguel’s win over the NLEX Road Warriors on February 8 might be worse than initially reported.
The injury, an MCL sprain, will keep Aguilar out at least a month or more, according to Gin Kings coach Tim Cone.
“He could be gone, from today, I’d say anywhere between three and five weeks,” Cone said post-game after Ginebra beat the Blackwater Bossing for their fourth win in the tournament.
Say what you will about Aguilar’s maddening inconsistency or his sometimes uninspired play, but the reality is, the Gin Kings are a lot better when he is playing. And he has always found ways to come up big in big moments—or just as he’s counted out, like he did in Game 7 of the Commissioner’s Cup Finals.
No less than Christian Standhardinger, the other half of Ginebra’s twin towers, knows the value of having Aguilar around.
“Obviously, missing Japeth is a big hit for the team,” Standhardinger pointed out. “What he brings to the floor is with scoring, with blocking shots, with rebounding. We all need to rebound more. We need to play better defense and compete because we do not have a Japeth that blocks shots down there. And offensively we have to all score a little bit more to compensate for Japeth.”
The Gin Kings did all that against Blackwater in their blowout win. But it was obvious they missed Aguilar in their previous two losses—a blowout win against the Magnolia Hotshots, where their import, Antonio Hester, had his way, and against the San Miguel Beermen, where Cameron Clark pretty much did the same.
It now appears Ginebra will need to do a lot more in the coming weeks.
“I would say he [Aguilar] might be back late, late in the playoffs. We’ll see,” said Cone about his injured big man. “Right now, his knee is immobilized, so we can’t really figure anything out until he frees his knee and starts exercising. Then we’ll have a better idea of when he’ll be back. But right now, he’s just purely been immobilized, so there’s no testing going on…just complete rest for that knee.”
Ginebra might well be able to hold down until then. But they will need Aguilar in the playoffs with showdowns against Magnolia and San Miguel looming, and with TNT Tropang Giga emerging as another potential foil with inside operator Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.
Sans Aguilar, the road to a fourth Governors’ Cup title for Ginebra figures to be the hardest. And further complicating it is Standhardinger’s own iffy right knee, LA Tenorio’s lingering abdominal injury, and Justin Brownlee’s incredible load.