Will Bishop bless Meralco?

Meralco isn’t shaking up its roster for the coming PBA Governors’ Cup as coach Norman Black is relying on the Bolts nucleus that took the squad to the semifinals of the recent Philippine Cup. But Black will unveil a Bishop on his chess board and team manager Paolo Trillo hopes the Panamanian import with a reverend name will turn out to be a blessing.

NBA veteran Shabazz Muhammad was supposed to suit up for Meralco but a personal emergency got in the way. Muhammad, who lives in Las Vegas, went to the Philippine consulate in Los Angeles for his visa last week and was ready to fly over until something came up. Black personally phoned Tony Bishop to ask if he could join Meralco.

“We actually thought of Tony before Shabazz,” said Black. “He’s coming off playing in the Puerto Rico league finals so he’s in game shape. We got a call at 1:30 a.m., our time, to advise us that Shabazz couldn’t come immediately, maybe later but when? It was getting late in the day and imports from other teams were already in town so we decided to reach out to Tony.” Bishop is based in Florida and will leave for Manila the day after he is issued a visa by the Philippine honorary consulate in Miami. He could be here before the week ends.

“We were following Tony in the Puerto Rico league finals,” said Trillo. “He can play both inside and outside, has three-point range and is a productive scorer and rebounder. Tony’s a quality, high-level import. As for our lineup, no free agents or trades for now. We’re sticking with our core and we feel chemistry is good. We got slowed down last conference by our positive cases. Hopefully, we can stay healthy. Aaron (Black) is back from a hand injury and will help. Mac (Belo) and Alvin (Pasaol) are still feeling their way, adjusting and Raymond (Almazan) can establish himself more.” Despite the difficulties in the previous conference, Meralco took Magnolia to six games in the semis.

Bishop, 32, teamed with ex-PBA import Renaldo Balkman to lead Guaynabo in the Puerto Rico league best-of-seven finals against Arecibo. In Game 4, Bishop had 29 points and 12 rebounds as Guaynabo crushed Arecibo, 95-80, to even the series at two wins each last Nov. 13. But Arecibo stormed back to clinch the title, 4-2. For the season, Bishop averaged 16.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 32.4 minutes, shooting 52.5 percent from two-point range, 30.7 percent from triple distance and 77.4 percent from the line. A Panamanian national player since 2014, Bishop led Richland College in Dallas to the US junior college D-3 title in 2009. He saw action for two seasons with D-1 Texas State then played in Denmark, Lithuania, Puerto Rico, Germany, Panama, Japan (D-3), Romania and Poland. Bishop averaged 9.3 points in eight games for Panama during the FIBA 2019 World Cup qualifiers.