The PBA Rookie draft, was aired on TV lived for the first time in league history.
Vintage sports commentator Joe Cantada covered his final game on TV during the April 9 replay of the controversial Shell-Purefoods game that took place on March 17. After a decade of covering the PBA games, Smokin' Joe bade goodbye unexpectedly because of health problems.
An era in Philippine Basketball ended on April 21 when Virgilio "Baby" Dalupan resigned as head coach of Purefoods Hotdogs. Dalupan cited his difference with management as the reason for his resignation.
On May 19, Ginebra San Miguel made history in the PBA record books as the first team to come back from a 3-1 series deficit and beat Shell Rimula-X in game 7 of the best-of-7 1st conference championship showdown. Rudy Distrito made a difficult baseline fadeaway shot against two Shell defenders with one second remaining to give Ginebra their third PBA title.
The biggest newsmaker of the year was Alvin Patrimonio, after his contract with Purefoods expired in June, sophomore team Pepsi Cola sent Purefoods an offer sheet detailing a whooping P 25.3 million salary and a benefits package for 5 1/2 years, Purefoods match Pepsi's multi-million peso contract to retain Patrimonio's services, and after three and a half seasons in the PBA, Purefoods' talented power-forward finally snared the coveted Most Valuable Player (MVP) award.
The PBA took a break on November 24-December 5, before the Third Conference Finals, with the staging of the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games here in Manila, and in support of our Philippine National Basketball team campaigning for the Cage Gold it lost to Malaysia two years ago in Kuala Lumpur and reclaim basketball supremacy in Southeast Asia.
By the end of the season, Commissioner Rudy Salud retired after 17 years with the league, the last four years spent as its principal overseer. His dynamic leadership resulted in innovations leading to competitive balance, a large audience and the league's unprecedented popularity.
