CHRISTIAN Standhardinger gives perennial winners June Mar Fajardo and Jayson Castro a run for their money in the wide-open race for the PBA Governors Cup Best Player of the Conference award.
The Fil-German sophomore has made a strong case for the season conference's top individual award following NorthPort's amazing run in the playoffs.
Standhardinger towed the Batang Pier to the semifinals for just the second time in franchise history following an upset of top seed NLEX Road Warriors in the quarterfinals.
Although the Batang Pier fell short in the semis after losing to Barangay Ginebra, the NorthPort big man nonetheless has crowd out Castro and Fajardo for the season's final BPC honor.
The winner of the award will be known Wednesday before Game 4 of the Governors' Cup finals at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Sponsored content:
Also to be handed out during the short awarding ceremony is the winner of the Best Import award which is a tossed up between Meralco's Allen Durham and Justine Brownlee of Barangay Ginebra.
Durham has twice beaten Brownlee for the plum in 2016 and 2017, respectively.
Heading to the finals, Fajardo leads the BPC race with a total of 38.8 statistical points (sps) followed by Columbian Dyip's rookie guard CJ Perez with 37. 2 sps.
But Fajardo's shot at winning his ninth BPC plum was hurt by the Beermen's failure to go deep into the playoffs.
The Dyip on the other hand, were eliminated outright.
Sponsored content:
Standhardinger sits at no. 3 with 35.1 sps, while Kiefer Ravena of NLEX is at fourth spot with 34.6 sps.
Castro rounds out the top five with 31.6 sps.(RG)
