{"id":214344,"date":"2019-05-14T21:10:48","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T01:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=214344"},"modified":"2019-05-14T21:10:48","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T01:10:48","slug":"from-being-an-elastopainter-raymond-almazan-is-now-a-meralco-bolt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/05\/14\/from-being-an-elastopainter-raymond-almazan-is-now-a-meralco-bolt\/","title":{"rendered":"From being an Elastopainter, Raymond Almazan is now a Meralco Bolt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
“BREAKING: It\u2019s OFFICIAL! Raymond Almazan is here to #ChargeItUp! Welcome to Meralco Bolts, Raymond!” (Photo<\/a>: Meralco Bolts Official<\/a>\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>Twenty-nine-year-old Raymond Almazan has officially been traded from the Rain or Shine Elastopainters into the Meralco Bolts, approved by Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Commissioner Willie Marcial last Tuesday, May 14.<\/span><\/p>\n

The exchange happened shortly after the Bolts faced the Alaska Aces in a tune-up game on the same day, with Meralco team manager Paolo Trillo sharing that the trade equated to their team swapping 2019 and 2021 first-round draft picks with the Elastopainters. <\/span><\/p>\n

The six-foot-eight big man entered the pro league in 2013 through the PBA Rookie Draft, becoming the third overall pick.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the ongoing 2019 Philippine Cup, Almazan averaged 8.0 points and 6.0 rebounds per game considering his missed games due to injury. However, Meralco expresses their excitement in fulfilling the much-needed big man position that they had long been searching for, as they have an abundance of strong guards like Baser Amer, Mike Tolomia, Anjo Caram, John Pinto, Trevis Jackson, and Chris Newsome.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a reaction to the trade, Meralco head coach Norman Black shared, \u201cWe\u2019ve gone quite a few years now without being able to man the paint, particularly in the All-Filipino. We have bigs, I\u2019m not downplaying them. But Almazan is one of the best bigs in the country.\u201d He added, \u201cI will say he definitely will make us better. He\u2019s a good shot blocker, a good rebounder. He can score around the basket \u2014 all the things that we need. We\u2019re giving up a premium for him but we wanna win now. Let\u2019s see what happens about the fortunes.\u201d Coach Norman concludds, \u201cWe’re giving up a premium for him, obviously, but we want to win now, and we want to get a guy who can help us win now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The league\u2019s mid-season conference, also known as the Commissioner\u2019s Cup, begins on May 19, where Almazan is expected to first see action with his new team. He\u2019ll be joined by new import Gani Lawal to fulfill the absence of Jared Dillinger and Ranidel de Ocampo, who are suffering from injuries.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty-nine-year-old Raymond Almazan has officially been traded from the Rain or Shine Elastopainters into the Meralco Bolts, approved by Philippine …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":214345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","mauthors-gianna-llanes","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214344"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214348,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214344\/revisions\/214348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}