MANNY Harris made an immediate impact right on his PBA debut Wednesday.
For NLEX coach Yeng Guiao, his new import can only get better - and that spells bad news for the rest of the PBA Governors Cup field.
"He still has a lot of upside," said the grizzled tactician. "Once he gets used to our style of play, once he gets used to the time zone, we're still going to get more from Manny."
Guiao spoke after the replacement for Olu Ashaolu lived up to his reputation as a big-time scorer by scattering 45 points to power the Road Warriors into a 117-111 win over the Columbian Dyip at the Ynares Center in Antipolo City.
In all, the NBA veteran made 15 of 28 tries from the field and missed just one of his 13 free throw attempts.
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Not bad at all for someone who last played competitive basketball six months ago, when he made his last overseas stop in the Turkish league, and flew into Manila only last Saturday.
"He also had a hard time adjusting to the time zone. He's still jet-lagged. He's not able to sleep regular hours. He woke up at midnight. That was my biggest worry coming into this game," offered Guiao.
Harris proved those worries were unfounded by scoring 18 first half points before finishing stronger with 15 in the fourth period to key NLEX's full break from Columbian and into their fifth win in six games.
"Manny actually did better than we expected because in practice, he couldn't do a full practice with us the last three times," said Guiao. "He's a gamer, he's a competitor. He did what he needed to do for us to win this game."
Harris' points were the most scored by a debuting import since SMB's Chris McCullough notched 47 in the last Commissioner's Cup and the former could only agree with his coach.
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"I feel okay. I'm just trying to get in game shape because I haven't played a game in a while," said the Detroit native. "For sure, there's always room for improvement. I don't think I've played my best. But the main thing is, we were able to get the win. That's all that really matters."
He also maintained it's not just scoring where he's good at."I can do a lot more... rebounds and assists," he said.
"It might not be every night that you need to score as much points but you might have to get more rebounds and assists. I'm just ready for whatever challenge," added Harris.
Harris also said he likes the PBA style of play, maintaining it is more to his liking.
"It's fast-paced and it's physical from what I see," stated Harris.
"Philippine players are also good, you gotta bring it every night. That's what I think of the league: You gotta come ready to play every night. I like it fast-paced, but sometimes in games, you might have to slow it down. You gotta be ready for whatever."
Certainly, Harris' initial performance validated the decision to replace original import Ashaolu, who helped the Road Warriors get off to a 4-1 start in the season-ending conference.
"We took a big gamble, actually," admitted Guiao. "Olu was doing really well for us. He brought us to where we are now. We took a big risk, but it seems to me after one game that it's worth the risk, that the gamble we took was worth it."
The need to have someone who could play like TNT's KJ McDaniels, Barangay Ginebra's Justin Brownlee and San Miguel Beer's Dez Wels was also factored in for the decision to take in the former Cleveland Cavalier, who also had stints with the Los Angeles Lakers and, briefly, with the Dallas Mavericks.
"Although Olu was an offensive threat inside, we felt that with the other imports playing outside, being quicker, being able to shoot the outside shot, we felt that we had to find somebody who can match up with that," said Guiao. (NC)