Top pick Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser will be signed by Blackwater to the maximum three-year deal next week. PBA Media Bureau
Barely a week after the PBA rookie draft, the Blackwater Bossing are now busy making moves to tinker their roster for the coming season.
Just a few days after coming to terms verbally with Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser, who will be signed up by the Bossing to a maximum three-year deal next week, the team figured in a trade with another busy squad, the Converge FiberXers, the newest kids on the block.
On Saturday, the two teams finalized the trade that sent guard Kurt Lojera, one of the Bossing’s three first-round picks, to the FiberXers for center Yousef Taha.
The trade was approved by the PBA trade committee in a memo sent to the teams.
Selected ninth overall by the Bossing, Lojera, a 6-foot-1 combo guard, who played for La Salle, will be another young player joining the FiberXers, the newest squad in the PBA, which just acquired the old Alaska franchise.
In getting Lojera, the FiberXers had to unload 6-foot-8 journeyman center Taha.
Converge can afford to do so after the FiberXers drafted two big men in the first round – 6-foot-7 center Jeo Ambohot from Letran and 6-foot-6 Justin Arana from Arellano – as their No.3 and No.4 selections, respectively.
Aside from these two rookie big men, Converge also has 6-foot-7 incoming sophomore Ben Adamos, while still working out a deal with Fil-foreign frontliner Abu Tratter.
Just recently, the FiberXers figured in a separate trade with NLEX, acquiring Tyrus Hill, the Road Warriors’ seventh overall pick this year, and forward Dave Murrell, for Converge’s first round choice next year.
“We lacked big men and Converge has overloaded big men. On our part, we have excessive guards, so we have to unload Lojera,” wrote Blackwater team owner Dioceldo Sy.
Sy added that the Bossing had just re-acquired veteran forward James Sena, who played several years with the squad, before he was shipped to San Miguel.
“Since we needed additional supporting big men, we got back Sena,” he added.
Blackwater coach Ariel Vanguardia justified the team’s decision to get Taha and Sena.
“We really needed big men in our squad,” added Vanguardia, whose only inside presence the previous season was Barkley Ebona.