Storey’s tale continues; Hatfield joining Kings soon

source: Francis T.J. Ochoa | inquirer.net

WITH STILL ABOUT FOUR MINUTES left in Friday night’s second game, fans started to file out of the Cuneta Astrodome, certain that Barangay Ginebra, trailing Sta. Lucia, 61-77, was doomed.

“It was a bad game to watch,” said coach jong Uichico of the Kings’s 72-86 loss to the Realtors in the PBA Fiesta Conference.

A little later, he made a slight correction.

“It was a bad game to watch, it was a bad game to play in and it was a bad game to coach,” he said.

For the fans that went home early, disappointed that the crowd darlings failed to match their opening day victory against a powerhouse Talk ‘N Text squad, the question that lingered was: Was it the end of the story for the Kings’ import.

Not yet. As far as the soft-spoken, celebrated champion coach is concerned, Awvee Storey is staying, despite a poor 13-point effort against the Realtors that exposed some of his weaknesses.

“Everybody has his bad game,” Uichico told the Inquirer. “He deserves a chance to prove himself. It’s just been a couple of games.”

Against Sta. Lucia, the Ginebra mentor admitted that the Kings were “out-defended. Take away a couple of three-pointers in the endgame and you would see that we played a good defensive game. But they out-defended us.”

“We’ve been struggling against Sta. Lucia this season,” Uichico noted, after losing to the Realtors also twice in the previous tournament.

So now, he is willing to wait.

He’ll wait for Storey to find the form that made his debut an impressive one and wait also for the arrival of one of the toughest forwards ever to don a Ginebra uniform: Rudy Hatfield.

“He’s due in about two weeks or so,” said the Kings coach.

Hatfield has already agreed in principle to play for a year for the Kings, meaning the rebounding and defensive whiz will also suit up for next year’s Philippine Cup and shore up a Ginebra frontline that was picked apart by Alaska in the semifinals of the previous conference.

And in the meantime, Storey’s tale continues. And Uichico hopes that Friday night would be the last time fans head for the exits before the final buzzer sounds.