Rommel Niño Canaleta is a
FilipinoThe Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....
professionalProfessional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations...
basketballBasketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
player of Filipino-American descent. He currently plays for the
Barangay Ginebra KingsThe Barangay Ginebra Kings is a professional basketball team of the Philippine Basketball Association founded in 1979 and owned by the Ginebra San Miguel, Inc., a subsidiary of the San Miguel Corporation...
in the
Philippine Basketball AssociationThe Philippine Basketball Association , is a men's professional basketball league in the Philippines composed of 10 company-branded franchised teams. It is the first and oldest professional basketball league in Asia and the second oldest in the world after the NBA...
. A 6'5", 200-
poundThe pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...
swingmanA Swingman is a basketball term denoting a player who can play both the small forward and shooting guard positions, and, in essence, swing between the shooting guard and small forward positions." Swingmen males are often between 6'5" and 6'8" .John Havlicek, who played for the Boston Celtics in...
, he is fondly called by nicknames like
KG,
The Big Ticket, and
The Da Vinci of Dunk. He won the 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2010 PBA Slam Dunk Contests and led the Air21 Express to a third-place finish in the
2006 PBA Philippine Cup.
About The Player
He made a serious run for the Rookie of the Year honors with an impressive Philippine Cup campaign where he averaged 16.2 points per game, No. 1 among rookies and seventh in the tournament among locals. But a so-so performance in the Fiesta Conference and two finals stints of Red Bull made
Larry FonacierLarry Alexander N. Fonacier is a professional basketball player in the Philippine Basketball Association who currently plays for the Talk 'N Text Tropang Texters...
a no-brainer for the award.
Canaleta is undoubtedly one of the biggest attractions in the league with his jaw-dropping, never-seen slams by a local player. The 6-6 forward was a back-to-back-to-back winner of the Slam-Dunk competition, both by convincing fashion. He was ranked number 2 in scoring among rookies during his rookie year with 9.4 points per outing. Cañaleta was the first Philippine Basketball Association player to become a 4-time PBA Slamdunk Champion.He was also awarded by the PBA to be the Mr. Quality Minutes Player in 2010.
Awards
- Mr. Quality Minutes Award (2010)
- Four-time PBA Slam Dunk Champion (2005, 2006, 2007,2010)
- PBA All Rookie First Team (2005-2006)
- Scored a record 38 Points in the PBA Rookie Game
External links