The Beast, as Phoenix Fuel Masters forward Calvin Abueva is known around the PBA, is, by all accounts, now a creature transformed – defanged, declawed and dehorned.
According to reports, Abueva has completed every labor the PBA had tasked him to do since an indefinite suspension was hung over him like a yoke, attending seminars on anger management and good behavior and spending long hours in community service.
He has apologized for his misdeeds and vowed never to stray from the straight and narrow, met with Commissioner Willie Marcial and officials of the Games and Amusements Board, and had his drug and COVID-19 swab tests prior to and upon entering the PBA Clark Freeport bubble at Quest Hotel in Pampanga.
Should the GAB hand him back his license and the PBA decide to reinstate him, Abueva would take the court practically in a muzzle – to deter him from uttering anything obscene in the future, and bound – to keep him from hanging another clothesline.
Of course, there would be no opposing fans for him to infuriate. The pandemic took care of that.
But he’d be closely watched for sure, his every move scrutinized, his every foul analyzed for intent.
In fact, he’d likely be a poster boy for the Sportsmanship Award at the end of the compact 45th season rather than a candidate for Defensive Player of the Year – Dennis Rodman with the tattoos and even the dyed hair but minus the gung-ho attitude.
He’d be clean, but would he still be mean? And of any use to the Fuel Masters as Mr. Nice Guy?
Abueva’s new coach believes so.
“Calvin will always be Calvin, no matter what,” Topex Robinson tells the Manila Bulletin.
“And I’m excited to see his growth after everything that has happened to him.”
Robinson, asked to step in after erstwhile coach Louie Alas was let go last September, would be crucial in cultivating that growth.
Already he has begun, accompanying Abueva to the GAB office and travelling with him to Clark, with proof of the trip on Instagram with the title "Northbound" above their photo.
Abueva won’t be alone when he makes his way back, Robinson assures.
“What we can do as a team is to support him and remind him of who he is and what he stands for,” he says.
“We want to let him know that we are here for him. I believe that our basic human need is to belong, to have that sense of belongingness.”
Would providing that sense of kinship entail making sure Abueva stays out of trouble?
“Calvin knows that I’m not here to fix him, but to be with him,” says Robinson. “I hope that makes sense.”
It does. And for his sake, it’s hoped the brand new Beast gets it too.