Their new import Antonio Hester is not new to the PBA environment and at least his experience playing in the league should provide him comfort and not that being pressured. He's now with the team where he will surely have lots of support from local teammates compared to his first import stint in the league playing in Terrafirma.
I am not familiar with Antonio Hester but he will surely have a lot of pressure to perform since Magnolia is already down 0-3 in standing. Though it is still very early, they will still need to win every single game left in order to qualify for the next round. Someone pointed out they need to win at least 6 out of their 8 remaining games. That is tough order and there is still an adjustment period. Luckily, Magnolia has good local players.
Yeah, they almost got a win against SMB possibly with Paul Lee's clutch shot. But if only their import is playing well in the entire game, there's no need for that clutch shot moment. Can't imagine Magnolia's import only scored 13 points in that long playing time. It's not how the import should be.
Magnolia did a good job of fixing the import problem right away and decided to replace him before anything much worst happened. It's quite unusual to see the Magnolia Hotshots in a 0-3 starting record at any conference involving an import.
They are in a losing streak, that's already a bad start for them. For them to win, they should get an import as good as Brownlee, I mean, they should use Brownlee as a standard in getting an import because if Brownlee will still dominates, that would mean Ginebra will be the champion again.
I will disagree with that. Since when should the likes of Brownlee become a standard for that? lol.
He is great but saying he should be the reference for other teams in choosing imports, is out of context. The performance of imports can just be seen while playing for the team, you can't base it on their previous performance on other teams outside PBA as these imports are playing with the locals here in PBA.
You can't just find a Brownlee-like import as Brownlee already formed good chemistry with Ginebra for several years of playing with the team, with the same teammates and handled by the same coach for a long. During Brownlee's early years in Ginebra, he's also struggling and not performing well.
Ginebra is lucky in that department since they have a regular import that is willing to play with them. They do not have to go through some adjustment period every other conference to have a good chemistry with their import. Brownlee and Ginebra locals have already formed a good chemistry playing together for a long period of time.