MANILA, Philippines -- Before the 52-day pause in the PBA Season 50 Governors' Cup, Macau was already struggling to keep pace with the rest of the league.
Macau had already missed the quarterfinals in the previous Commissioner's Cup after finishing 11th of the 13 teams with a 3-9 record. The Black Knights, as the team was then known, opened that conference 0-7 before winning three of their final five games, with their lone stretch of momentum coming far too late to rescue their playoff hopes.
Still, there was supposed to be a reset for the Governors' Cup.
The team changed its name to the Giant Pandas, brought in De'Vondre Perry as its import, added Kobey Lam, and expected to have Jenning Leung back after his overseas commitment. The organization itself acknowledged that the Commissioner's Cup had been an "eye-opener" and that the goal was to field a stronger team that could be more competitive at the PBA level.
Instead, the opposite has happened.
After entering the 52-day break at 2-6, Macau returned on Wednesday and suffered the most lopsided defeat in PBA history. The Giant Pandas were demolished by Group A leader NLEX Road Warriors, 138-78, at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium. The 60-point margin eclipsed Rain or Shine's 151-95 victory over Blackwater Bossing earlier this season, and it was not even Macau's first historic blowout of the conference.
In its final game before the break, Macau fell to San Miguel, 131-79, after the Beermen built a 43-point halftime advantage, 80-37. That was the largest halftime lead in PBA history, meaning Macau now owns both ends of a particularly ugly statistical sequence: The league's biggest halftime deficit and biggest margin of defeat, recorded in back-to-back games within the same conference.
The Giant Pandas now face the prospect that their season is unlikely to get better anytime soon, as they are dealing with a severely depleted roster. Four key players who had been part of the rotation - import DeVondre Perry, Damian Chongqui, Ramon Cao and Jenning Leung - left the team during the break, while starting center Jeff Ma was unavailable against NLEX. Head coach Marcus Elliot was also missing on Wednesday.
New import Oscar Lopez delivered 36 points and 13 rebounds on 55.9 TS%, and Kobey Lam added 22 points, eight rebounds and seven assists, but two players can't carry a team. They also combined for 18 turnovers.
The roster circumstances are unfortunate, but they cannot fully explain what Macau is putting on the floor.
There is nothing wrong with struggling against PBA competition, and a guest team does not have to dominate, make the playoffs, or even contend for a championship to justify its participation. However, there should at least be a reasonable expectation that it can put a competitive product on the floor.
Bay Area showed that a foreign guest team could enter the PBA and immediately become a legitimate contender. The Dragons went 10-2 in the eliminations of the 2022-23 Commissioner's Cup, reached the Finals, and pushed Barangay Ginebra San Miguel to seven games.
Hong Kong Eastern did not replicate Bay Area's Finals run when it entered the league in the 2024-25 Commissioner's Cup, but the team still went 7-5 in the eliminations and reached the quarterfinals -- giving PBA teams legitimate competition throughout its campaign.
Those teams understood the assignment. They were guest teams, but they did not look like guests who were simply there to fill a slot.
Unfortunately, Macau is starting to look like that.