ANOTHER hardware has been added to the growing collection of June Mar Fajardo after he collared an unprecedented eighth Most Valuable Player (MVP) award in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA).

Fajardo was named the MVP for PBA Season 48 as he led the top awardees in the Leo Awards held on Sunday, August 18, at the Araneta Coliseum.

Before the Cebuano big man joined the PBA as the number one overall pick by San Miguel in the 2012 Rookie Draft, the most number of MVP awards won by a player in the league was four. Fajardo has doubled that record in what has been a stellar PBA career that saw him win eight MVP awards in the last nine years.

Fajardo’s streak of MVP wins was only stopped when a shin injury forced “The Kraken” to miss a ton of games in Season 46. Scottie Thompson of Barangay Ginebra was the MVP in that season.

Fajardo tallied 2,799 points to win the award, topping the statistics (1615) and both the players (329) and media votes (855). Fajardo’s San Miguel Beer teammate CJ Perez wound up second 1951 followed by Ginebra’s Christian Standhardinger (now with Terrafirma) with 1731.

The leading MVP candidates were joined in the First Mythical Team by Chris Newsome of Meralco and Northport's Arvin Tolentino.

Winning the Rookie of the Year award was Stephen Holt, who had a stellar Season 48 with Terrafirma before he was traded to Ginebra. Holt was joined in the Second Mythical Team by Calvin Oftana of TNT, Jason Perkins of Phoenix, Meralco's Cliff Hodge, and Terrafirma’s Juami Tiongson.

Rain or Shine’s Jhonard Clarito was named the Most Improved Player, while Paul Zamar of Northport took home the Samboy Lim Sportsmanship award.(CCM)

• Tags
• #June Mar Fajardo
• #Most Valuable Player
• #Philippine Basketball Association
• #Basketball
• #Philippine Sports