BGR's intensity and versatility on D helped Gilas win back the Southeast Asian games crown.
Not a lot of players are down with the nitty-gritty that comes with playing good, hardnosed defense. That makes Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser of the NLEX Road Warriors unique—part of arguably a dying breed of hoopers who openly embrace the challenge of locking up other players.
In fact, defense is something the big man out of San Diego, California has put to heart.
“I pride myself on defense. Everybody was asking me, ‘You think you’re gonna be Rookie of the Year?’ Honestly, I just want to be First Team All-Defense,” Ganuelas-Rosser said as he dropped by the PBA Rush coverage of NLEX’s PBA On Tour game versus the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters on Friday.
The 6-foot-6 center, who is in the Road Warriors’ official PBA On Tour lineup but is not playing yet, added that he has been eyeing the all-defensive team award from quite some time now.
“That’s the only goal I set for myself the whole season,” admitted the 28-year-old big, who was drafted first overall by the Blackwater Bossing in the 2022 PBA Draft but was traded to NLEX prior to the PBA Commissioner’s Cup. “I wanted to get First Team All-Defense. Fingers crossed that I get it.”
The newly minted Southeast Asian Games gold medalist has a strong case to be named to that team of the league’s premier defensive players. In 32 games in Season 47, the man simply known as BGR was a force on D all-season long, and the numbers prove it: 1.5 blocks per game and 0.7 steals on just 27 minutes of action on average.
Those numbers, though, tell only half the story of BGR’s work on defense. The 28-year-old is actually among the league’s best and most versatile defenders—and arguably its fiercest and most ferocious.
That might be enough for Ganuelas-Rosser to make it to the PBA’s First Team All-Defense—or it might not be. Either way, expect the Road Warrior big to be a fixture on the league’s all-defensive teams for years to come.