Purefoods TJ Giants

(also known as Purefoods TJ Hotdogs, Purefoods Oodles Noodles, Purefoods Carne Norte Beefies, Coney Island Ice cream stars, Purefoods Chunkee Giants, Purefoods TJ Giants)



Team History

The All Filipino conference is Purefoods’ domain. From its inception in 1988 up to 1994, the Hotdogs made the All-Filipino finals a record 7 times. No other team in history, even powerhouses Crispa and Toyota, and present day teams Alaska and San Miguel could duplicate the Hotdogs’ string of consecutive All Filipino finals appearance. The heart and soul of the team were Glenn Capacio, Alvin Patrimonio and Jerry Codinera. Together, they made Purefoods a very formidable team. Alvin Patrimonio was on pace to becoming the league’s marquee big man and he sealed that billing by signing a 5-year, 25 million peso offer sheet from Pepsi to become to league’s highest paid player. Capacio and Codinera made their mark on the defensive and made life easier for Patrimonio with their heady plays down the stretch. The partnership would be broken in 1999 when Purefoods traded Jerry Codinera to Mobiline for Andy Seigle. Glenn Capacio would also be traded to Shell afterwards.

The team is also home to several of the great coaching minds in PBA history. Legendary Crispa head coach Baby Dalupan gave the team its first championship in 1990. Derrick Pumaren, Eric Altamirano and Ely Capacio coached the team during its yesteryears and made a good account of themselves. Coach Chot Reyes was many-time recipient of the Coach of the Year award. Present coach Ryan Gregorio has twice been named as Coach of the Year. It was in coach Ryan Gregorio’s tenure that the team suffered one of its worst and best performance of all time. In 2002, the team made the first step towards its rebuilding efforts by dealing for Red Bull’s Kerby Raymundo. The second step was drafting PBA MVP James Yap in 2004. Finally, the rebuilding efforts would touch down with several trades that gave the team Jean Marc Pingris and Roger Yap. The foursome would lead Purefoods to its fourth All Filipino crown in the 2005-06 season.

Review of the 2006-07 Season:

Philippine Cup: The ghost of the 2004-05 season haunted the Giants anew. Injuries wrecked the entire season for the team that was coming off a successful 2005-06 campaign wherein they figured in two finals stints. Marc Pingris, the 2005-06 Defensive Player of the Year and the man who played an instrumental role in the Giants’ twin championship march last season, was lost to an injury in game 2 of their quarterfinals match-up with Talk N Text and along with it killed their chances of repeating as champs of the Philippine Cup. Without their lone anchor on the defensive end, the undersized and severely undermanned Giants fell prey to the overpowering talent of the Phonepals in five games.

Fiesta Cup: The Giants changed their team monicker to TJ Giants but it still did not change the fortunes of the team. They started out on the wrong foot losing their key personnel and import to injuries. Without Jun Limpot and Marc Pingris (both injured) and Kerby Raymundo (named to the national team), they were easy pickings for the PBA’s “bigger” teams. Original import Marquin Chandler, the 2005-06 Fiesta Cup Best Import awardee, missed the team’s first three games due to an injury and his temporary replacement Jesse King, who posted quite respectable numbers of 20.67ppg and 12.67rpg in three games couldn’t bring a win to the Giants. Luckily, James Yap and Peter June Simon had a huge conference as they took turns in leading the Giants’ offensive attack. Peter June Simon averaged a career-high 12.06ppg in 17 games, highlighted by a 31-point explosion in one of their games in the Fiesta Cup. James Yap rekindled his MVP form pacing all locals in scoring with a 24.06 ppg average. Marquin Chandler‘s game, noticeably, has been affected by the lack of support in the middle for Purefoods. Playing out of position at center at times, he still had respectable averages of 29.07 ppg, 13.73 rpg, 4.33 apg, and 1.13 bpg but couldn’t led the Giants past the quarterfinals. They lost to Coca Cola 100-97 in their final game of the season to bow out of the conference.

Biggest Blunders

In 1988 All-Filipino Conference finals against Anejo Rhum, Purefoods, although only with a one conference experience in the PBA, was the favorite to bring home the crown what with the likes of super rookies Alvin Patrimonio, Jerry Codinera and Jojo Lastimosa, veterans Ramon Fernandez and other ex-Tanduay stalwarts providing enough firepower to the rookie team. Only one game turned the season around for the Hotdogs. One bad game. It was Game 1 of the championship. El Presidente couldn’t get his game going and rookies Patrimonio and Codinera were left to carry the show for the beleaguered Hotdogs. Purefoods President Rene Buhain accused Fernandez of fixing the game and ordered him benched for the rest of the series. Fernandez cried foul and took his act to court. Without their leader and playing coach, Purefoods lost the series to Anejo Rhum 1-3. They traded Fernandez to San Miguel Beer the following conference for Abet Guidaben who was then the early MVP leader. This was the second time both veterans were traded for each other. Both times, Guidaben would lose his chance of an MVP plum after leading the race. A visibly frustrated Guidaben played lacklusterly for Purefoods and they wound up last in the Third Conference. Fernandez took home the MVP award, his fourth and Guidaben, well, was a free agent at season end and signed up with Alaska Milk. Fernandez gave SMB a grand slam the following year falling just short of a fifth MVP. So for Fernandez, Purefoods asked for only a conference of Abet Guidaben. They should have asked for at least a first round pick. Benjie Paras turned pro a conference later after making that controversial trade.