Finally, a major Philippine Basketball Association individual award for CJ Perez.
The three-time league scoring champion bagged his first Best Player of the Conference award in the short awarding rites held before Game 4 of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup on Friday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The San Miguel Beer guard captured the award in convincing fashion.
Perez won in the Media and Players’ votes, despite narrowly losing in the stats to runner-up Christian Standhardinger of Barangay Ginebra.
A former Most Valuable Player in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Perez received 505 votes from the media and 86 votes from the players.
He also had 464 points from the statistics for a grand total of 1,055 in what was easily the most overwhelming victory since the BPC was handed out.
Perez was the latest San Miguel player to win the award since it was given in 1994.
He joined players like Allan Caidic, Nelson Asaytono, Danny Seigle, Danny Ildefonso, Jay Washington, Arwind Santos, June Mar Fajardo and Chris Ross in the elite club of Beermen who captured the BPC.
Fajardo stands out as having the most BPC wins with nine.
But while Perez’s triumph didn’t come as a big surprise, the Best Import proved to be a shocker as none among the reinforcements competing in the ongoing Commissioner’s Cup best-of-seven championship series — Tyler Bey of Magnolia and Bennie Boatwright of San Miguel — got chosen.
Instead, the award was given to Johnathan Williams, the hardworking import of Phoenix, who led his team in making a deep run to the playoffs in this tournament.
Much of Williams’ points came from media votes with 424 points and he garnered a total of 1,017 points, beating his closest pursuer, Bey, who had 908.
Boatwright received 878 points.
