Reliving the Top 5 Unforgettable Moments from PBA All Stars 2015

I still get chills thinking about the 2015 PBA All-Star Weekend—that magical convergence of talent, drama, and pure basketball artistry that reminded us why we fell in love with the game in the first place. As someone who's covered Philippine basketball for over a decade, I've witnessed countless All-Star games, but there's something about the 2015 edition that feels uniquely preserved in amber. Maybe it's because we saw players at career crossroads, or perhaps it was the perfect storm of emerging legends and fading heroes sharing one brilliant stage. What I know for certain is that five moments from that weekend have become part of our collective basketball memory, moments I find myself revisiting whenever current games feel too predictable or corporate.

Let me start with June Mar Fajardo's complete domination in the All-Star Game itself. We all knew he was special, but watching him put up 26 points and 18 rebounds against the country's best felt like witnessing a force of nature. I remember turning to my colleague and whispering, "They have no answer for him," and we weren't just talking about that game—we were talking about the next decade of PBA basketball. What made it unforgettable wasn't just the stat line, but how effortless he made it look. There was no showboating, just fundamental basketball executed at its highest level. He shot 11-of-15 from the field, mostly because he positioned himself so perfectly he barely needed to jump. That performance wasn't just an All-Star showcase; it was a statement that the league's center of gravity had permanently shifted.

Then there was James Yap's shooting clinic during the Three-Point Shootout. The man was 33 years old at that point, and many were whispering that his best days were behind him. James responded by putting on what I consider the most technically perfect three-point shooting performance I've ever seen live. He didn't just win—he made the net barely move, shot after shot. His final round was pure poetry: 22 points with that iconic release that seemed to hang in the air a split-second longer than physics should allow. I've always believed great shooters have a certain rhythm to their preparation, and watching James that night was like watching a conductor leading a symphony where every note landed perfectly.

The Slam Dunk Contest that year gave us something we rarely see—genuine innovation. Rey Guevarro, then relatively unknown to casual fans, pulled off a dunk that still gets replayed in compilations today. He brought out a ladder, placed the ball on top, jumped from just inside the free-throw line, and grabbed it mid-air for a vicious one-handed slam. The creativity alone would have been memorable, but it was the execution that made it legendary. The arena went completely silent for a second before erupting—that collective gasp-turned-roar that only happens when people witness something they've never seen before. As a basketball purist, I sometimes groan at gimmicky dunk contests, but this was different. This was artistry.

Terrence Romeo's breakout performance deserves its own chapter in the 2015 story. The flashy guard dropped 30 points in the All-Star Game with that unmistakable swagger that would become his trademark. What impressed me most wasn't the scoring—All-Star games always feature inflated numbers—but how he controlled the game's tempo whenever he was on the floor. He had 8 assists that often get overlooked because his scoring was so spectacular, but I remember thinking this was the moment Terrence announced he belonged with the elite. His crossover on June Mar Fajardo—a play that shouldn't work against a defender of that size and skill—still lives in my memory as one of the most audacious moves I've seen in an All-Star context.

Which brings me to my final unforgettable moment, one that connects directly to Cedelf Tupas' recent comments about streaky shooters transitioning to the PBA. During the 2015 All-Star Weekend, we saw several players who dominated in other leagues trying to prove they belonged in the PBA spotlight. There was this one particular guard—I won't name him because he never quite made the jump—who went 5-for-5 from three-point range in limited minutes. Watching him then, I had the exact same thought Tupas expressed about Fuentes years later: "Great mechanics on his shot and footwork." The player had obviously been through pressure situations elsewhere, but the question hanging in the air was whether he could do it consistently against PBA-level defenders night after night.

That tension—between proven talent elsewhere and unproven potential in the PBA—was palpable throughout the weekend. When Tupas recently described a player as a "volume shooter" who's "very streaky" but has veteran experience in high-pressure MPBL games, he could have been talking about several participants in that 2015 All-Star event. The physicality question he raises is crucial—PBA shooting guards are indeed bigger, and what works in other leagues often doesn't translate. I've seen countless players with beautiful mechanics struggle when confronted with the PBA's specific defensive schemes and physical requirements. That 2015 weekend was a laboratory for testing exactly that transition, with some players using it as a springboard to stardom while others peaked during those exhibition games.

Looking back, the 2015 PBA All-Star Weekend was more than just entertainment—it was a crystal ball. We saw the established order (Fajardo), the technical masters (Yap), the innovators (Guevarro), the rising stars (Romeo), and the question marks that remind us how difficult professional basketball truly is. The conversation Tupas started about player translation between leagues? That discussion was happening in arenas and press rooms throughout the 2015 All-Star Weekend, just with different names. The unforgettable moments weren't just about what happened on the court, but what they represented about the sport's past, present, and future in the Philippines. Eight years later, I still measure subsequent All-Star events against that 2015 standard, and I've yet to see one that balances pure entertainment with meaningful basketball narrative quite as perfectly.