MANILA, Philippines – Barangay Ginebra ace center Greg Slaughter has emerged the early top favorite for the Best Player of the Conference plum, being the lone local player averaging double-double numbers entering the homestretch of the Oppo PBA Commissioner’s Cup elimination round.

His hulking norms of 19.14 points and 10.71 rebounds plus the strong winning record of his team has made the 7-foot-1 behemoth a strong bet for the Commissioner’s Cup BPC award won last year by Tropang TNT’s Jayson Castro.

Castro and Alaska Milk workhorse Calvin Abueva are also looming as prime contenders with their own solid stats lines.

The TNT hotshot, the reigning back-to-back FIBA Asia best guard, averages 20.86 points, 3.7 rebounds and 4.1 assists while Abueva puts in 16 markers, 8.12 boards, 3.7 feeds and 1.2 steals.

Globalport scoring machine Terrence Romeo is among the early stats race frontrunners with a tournament best (among locals) average of 25.3 points per game.

However, the Changsha FIBA Asia veteran has missed two games due to a calf muscle strain, and his team, currently the tail ender with a 2-6 win-loss mark, might not be able to salvage a berth in the playoffs.

The same is the case for Blackwater slasher/gunner Carlo Lastimosa with his impressive norms of 21.5 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.0 assists. His team has fallen out of the Magic Eight with a 3-5 slate.

Among the other top individual performers are San Miguel Beer’s Marcio Lassiter and Alex Cabagnot, NLEX’s Sean Anthony, Mahindra’s KG Canaleta, Rain or Shine’s JR Quinahan and Phoenix Fuel’s RR Garcia.

Philippine Cup BPC winner Junmar Fajardo has a lot of catching up to do if he’s to contend for a second straight BPC award that could well seal his bid for an unprecedented third successive MVP coronation.

Playing limited minutes coming off a knee injury, the San Miguel Beer main man averages only 11.2 points and 6.8 rebounds. He was rested in their most recent game.

With coach Leo Austria managing Fajardo’s minutes, Lassiter and Cabagnot have stepped up and carried much of the load for the Beermen.

Lassiter churns out 15.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.8 assists a game while Cabagnot makes 15.0 markers, 3.0 boards and 3.4 dish-offs an outing.

Anthony sports a near double-double averages of 13.4 points and 9.7 rebounds for NLEX, Canaleta stars for Mahindra with norms of 17.1 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.4 assists, Quinahan has improved with averages of 15.6 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.6 assists while Garcia is a steady force for Phoenix with 18.3 points, 2.9 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game.

For Meralco and Star, the steadiest are Cliff Hodge and Alein Maliksi, respectively.

Hodge collects 8.5 points and 7.6 rebounds a game while Maliksi has seemingly taken the mantle of leadership at Star, norming 16.6 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.0 steal.

Setting the bar among the imports are San Miguel’s Tyler Wilkerson and Meralco’s Arinze Onuaku.

Wilkerson leads everybody in scoring with an average of 34.6 points. Next are Al Thornton (33.3), Romeo (25.3) and Shane Edwards (25.3).

Onuaku is No. 1 in the business of rebounding with 19.1 a game, followed by Othyus Jeffers (17.0), David Simon (17.0) and MJ Rhett (15.9).