San Miguel center June Mar Fajardo receives his Best Player of the Conference award ahead of Game 4 of the 2022 PBA Philippine Cup Finals. PBA Images.
MANILA (UPDATED) - For the ninth time in his PBA career, San Miguel center June Mar Fajardo has earned Best Player of the Conference honors.
"The Kraken" claimed the award after a superb campaign in the 2022 PBA Philippine Cup, where he powered the Beermen to the Finals against the TNT Tropang GIGA.
Fajardo, 32, averaged 18.6 points and 13.3 rebounds per game through the semifinals of the conference. They currently have a 2-1 lead against TNT in the best-of-7 Finals, where Fajardo is averaging 21.3 points and 17 rebounds per game, while shooting 72% from the field.
This is the seventh time that Fajardo has won BPC honors in the All-Filipino conference. He also won the award in the 2015 Governors' Cup and the 2018 Commissioner's Cup.
His nine BPC trophies is a PBA record. His last win, however, was back in the 2019 Philippine Cup; Fajardo suffered a leg injury in February 2020 that forced him to miss the entire season.
In just his third season back since suffering the injury, Fajardo has again stood tallest in the All-Filipino Cup, running away with the BPC trophy. The San Miguel big man received 501 votes from statistics, 537 media votes, and 81 player votes for a total of 1,119 votes.
Fajardo beat out his own teammate, CJ Perez, TNT's Mikey Williams, and the Barangay Ginebra pair of Japeth Aguilar and Scottie Thompson for the award.
Perez finished second in the BPC race, with 776 votes, followed by Williams (610), Thompson (468) and Aguilar (415).
Aside from his trophy, Fajardo also received a cash prize of P50,000 during the awarding ceremony ahead of Game 4 of the 2022 PBA Philippine Cup Finals.