ALASKA coach Luigi Trillo admitted he has been having a hard time trying to keep Calvin Abueva focused amid the hype surrounding his historic shot at a rookie-MVP coup in the PBA.
The league’s top individual awards will not be handed out until after a few weeks, but Trillo is concerned thoughts of joining Benjie Paras as the only players in history to win both the Rookie of the Year and MVP awards on the same year has been a distraction for Abueva.
“It’s very hard (to keep Abueva focused) because the press really makes a big thing about the Rookie of the Year and MVP. And granted because he’s done so well, so there’s a lot of pressure on him,” Trillo told Spin.ph.
Trillo said he’s aware of Abueva’s increasing tendency to get out of control during games in the season-ending conference, which he said may have been caused by the pressure Abueva is putting on himself to deliver day in and day out to be deserving of both top individual awards.
Instead of a rise in performance, there has been a dip in the numbers for Abueva.
Over the last seven games, the energetic Alaska freshman normed 8.7 points and 7.0 rebounds on 35.4 percent field goal shooting, well below his season averages of 12.4 points and 9.4 rebounds.
In all seven games, the 25-year-old, high-leaping forward has been a little too eager, which speaks of his close to five fouls per game average.
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