HOW fortune really changes in a flick of a finger.
Left without a team before the 44th season of the PBA, suddenly lanky big man Marion Magat has now become a fixture in NLEX's regular rotation in the Philippine Cup.
Magat finished with a double-double of 14 points and 13 rebounds in helping the Road Warriors finally broke through the win column of the season-opening tournament, a 107-97 drubbing of Columbian Dyip Sunday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The 14-point output of the former National University stalwart equalled his career-best which he scored while still in an Alaska uniform during the same All-Filipino conference last year.
For him, it was just his way of repaying the trust given him by coach Yeng Guiao and the NLEX management.
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"Nagulat din ako sa performance ko," he admitted as the Road Warriors stopped their three-game skid for a 1-3 record. "Kaya laking pasasalamat ko sa NLEX kasi binigyan pa ako ng tsansa na maglaro sa PBA at maipakita ko yung talent na ibinigay sa akin."
Magat was a second round pick of Alaska in the 2015 draft, but was hardly utilized in his three-year stint with the franchise.
By season's end (2018), the Aces released him, leaving Magat without a team to play for.
That was until the Road Warriors invited him for a try-out in the hopes of getting someone help the team plug the hole in the middle.
"When we picked him up in the free agency and saw him in practice, we were actually planning to put him in the reserve list," disclosed Guiao in the post-game interview.
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"But after a few days in practice, we felt he deserved to be in the regular line-up."
And only in his fourth game as a Road Warrior, Magat already proved his coach did make the right decision.(RG)
