IS the elite circle of PBA Best Player of the Conference past winners set to welcome a new member?
And is Justin Brownlee finally hoisting the Governors' Cup Best Import award?
NorthPort's Robert Bolick and Barangay Ginebra's Scottie Thompson are the two leading contenders for the coveted BPC plum while Brownlee looms as the top choice for the Best Import award.
Balloting among the players and members of the PBA media starts Monday, ahead of the PBA Governors' Cup best-of-seven finals that kicks off Wednesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Bolick topped the stats race but Thompson has a good case for his BPC aspiration, being the lead local in Ginebra's hot charge to the title playoff versus the Meralco Bolts.
Also making the official list of BPC candidates are Phoenix Super LPG's Matthew Wright, NorthPort's Arwind Santos and TNT Tropang Giga's Mikey Williams.
Santos is the lone candidate who has previously bagged a BPC trophy.
Bolick has a leading 39.9 stats points per game, followed by Thompson with 35.0, Wright with 33.6, Santos with 33.5 and Williams with 32.6.
Brownlee leads the stats race among the import, and could well be on his way to finally claiming the Governors' Cup Best Import award that he missed in their title runs in 2016, 2017 and 2019.
Curiously, he was hailed as Best Import in the 2018 Commissioner's Cup where he slugged it out with taller rivals.
The resident Ginebra champion import, through the semis, averaged 53.7 SPs per game.Next is Magnolia's Michael Harris with 49.2, followed by Tony Bishop of Meralco with 47.5 and Cameron Clark of NLEX with 41.8.