2021 PBA season

The 2021 PBA season was the 46th season of the Philippine Basketball Association. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the season's start, originally scheduled on April 11, 2021, has been delayed until July 16, 2021. The league's Board of Governors announced that the season had two conferences: the Philippine Cup and the Governors' Cup.
The first activity of the season was the PBA season 46 draft held on March 14, 2021.

Executive board

Commissioner: Willie Marcial
Chairman: Ricky Vargas
Vice-Chairman: Demosthenes Rosales
Treasurer: Richard Bachmann

Player quotas

Filipino-foreigners

The PBA allows for each team to have up to five players classified as "Filipino-foreigners" in their roster. Filipino-foreigners are natural-born Filipinos who are born outside the Philippines. Natural-born Filipinos born inside the Philippines are not classified as such, and a team can as many of them as roster size permits.

Team

Player 1

Player 2

Player 3

Player 4

Player 5

Replaced

Alaska Aces

Imports

Naturalized Filipinos and foreigners can play as imports. They can only play in import-laced conferences, and usually a team is mandated to have at least one for the duration of the tournament.
A list of imports was provided on those conferences' articles.

Arenas

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Metro Manila, the season started to be played at Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig, in a closed-circuit format, with no spectators allowed for the meantime. On August 6, Metro Manila was placed under enhanced community quarantine, the highest level of quarantine; the league originally planned to continue at Lipa, Batangas. The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases allowed the PBA to resume in places which were under either modified general community quarantine or regular general community quarantine ; with the placement of Batangas under GCQ with heightened restrictions, this removed it from the places the league can play at. The PBA settled in their choice to play in Pampanga for the meantime, as they don't see the quarantine classification in Metro Manila from going to regular GCQ. The PBA then got permission to play in the Don Honorio Ventura State University gym in Bacolor.
For the first two weeks of the 2021 PBA Governors' Cup, the league returned to the Ynares Sports Arena. Quezon City then gave the permission for sports events to be held there with spectators; the PBA was expected to play at the Araneta Coliseum for the rest of the year starting December 15. At the start of 2022, the PBA was also expected to return at the Mall of Asia Arena. However, with the rise of COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila, the IATF-EID placed Metro Manila under alert level 3, causing the league to postpone the games for the week starting January 3.
When the Governors' Cup resumed on February 11, the league announced that the games would be played at the Ynares Center in Antipolo for the duration of the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup qualification round to be played from February 24 to 28 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
The league began playing at Mall of Asia Arena on March 23 during the Governors' Cup semifinals.

Arena	City
Don Honorio Ventura State University gym	Bacolor, Pampanga
SM Mall of Asia Arena	Pasay
Smart Araneta Coliseum	Quezon City
Ynares Center	Antipolo, Rizal
Ynares Sports Arena	Pasig

Transactions

Retirement

On January 24, Cyrus Baguio announced his retirement. Baguio played for 6 franchises in his 17 seasons in the association.
On February 1, Harvey Carey announced his retirement. Carey played for TNT Tropang Giga for 17 seasons.
On March 21, JC Intal announced his retirement. Intal played for 4 franchises in his 13 seasons in the association.
On May 15, Jay-R Reyes announced his retirement. Reyes played for 8 franchises in his 14 seasons in the association.
On May 25, Marc Pingris announced his retirement. Pingris played for 3 franchises in his 15 seasons in the association.
On December 29, Garvo Lanete announced his retirement. Lanete played for 3 franchises in his 6 seasons in the association.

Notable events

Pre-season

The PBA Board of Governors approved a two-conference format this season. One All-Filipino tournament to be held for four months and one import-laced tournament to be held for six months.
On March 12, Ricky Vargas of TNT KaTropa was re-elected for a fourth consecutive term as the Chairman of the PBA Board of Governors. Bobby Rosales of Terrafirma Dyip was re-elected as Vice Chairman, while Richard "Dickie" Bachmann of the Alaska Aces was elected as treasurer. Bachmann was also appointed as the chairman of the PBA 3×3 tournament. Vargas became the longest-serving head of the PBA Board of Governors since the presidency of Ginebra San Miguel's Carlos "Honeyboy" Palanca III and the chairmanship of Formula Shell's Reynaldo Marquez.
July 9: The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases have approved the proposal from the league to open its 46th season on July 16. The announcement came from the monthly Games and Amusements Board press conference.

Philippine Cup

July 18: Barangay Ginebra San Miguel started wearing their "Bagong Tapang" jerseys. The jerseys replace their light uniforms. The said jerseys were launched in April and were made available to fans beginning on May 1.
July 21: Four games involving the TNT Tropang Giga and the Terrafirma Dyip were postponed due to TNT players' inconclusive COVID-19 test results.
August 3: The league suspended their games beginning August 4 after the government declared that Metro Manila was under Enhanced Community Quarantine from August 6 to 20. The league have appealed to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases if they can continue their tournament in Batangas, which was under a more relaxed quarantine restrictions.
August 23: The league announced that they got the approval of Pampanga governor Dennis Pineda to resume their games at the Don Honorio Ventura State University in Bacolor starting September 1.

Midseason break

The league announced that the inaugural 3x3 season would start on November 20.
November 9: The PBA board of governors have approved to revise the league's policy for Fil-foreigner to be eligible for the PBA draft. Fil-foreigners are only required to submit a Philippine passport upon application to the draft. The board also increased the number of Fil-foreigner players per team from five to seven.

Governors' Cup

December 10: The Quezon City government approved the PBA's request to play their games with spectators. The games were played at the Smart Araneta Coliseum with half capacity allowed starting December 15.
December 25: The Magnolia Pambansang Manok Hotshots retired the jersey numbers of PJ Simon and Marc Pingris, during halftime of their game against Barangay Ginebra San Miguel.
January 3, 2022: The league postpones its scheduled games for the first week of January after Metro Manila was put on Alert Level 3 due to the rising COVID-19 cases.
January 6: The league postpones the Governors' Cup indefinitely. Team scrimmages are also suspended.
January 30: The league announced that the Governors' Cup would resume on February 11. Subsequently, the league announced on February 12 that spectators were allowed to watch the games inside the playing venues beginning February 16.
February 16: Alaska Aces team owner Wilfred Uytengsu announced that the franchise was leaving the PBA at the end of the 2021 season.
February 18: The PBA announced that the Hong Kong-based Bay Area Chun Yu Phoenixes from EASL would enter the league as a guest team during the Governors' Cup of season 47. Their participation was formally announced on March 21. It was also announced that the team would compete under the name Bay Area Dragons, so as not to confuse their nickname with current PBA team Phoenix Super LPG.
February 28: After the IATF-EID announced that Metro Manila would be under Alert Level 1 from March 1 to 15, the league announced that the Smart Araneta Coliseum would be back to full capacity starting on March 2.
March 6: The Alaska Aces retired the jersey number of Sonny Thoss, during halftime of their game against Magnolia Pambansang Manok Hotshots.
March 19: The Alaska Aces played its final PBA game after being eliminated by the NLEX Road Warriors in their do-or-die quarterfinal game, 96–80. At the end of the game, the league held a short tribute to the Alaska franchise then Commissioner Willie Marcial sounded the ceremonial "final buzzer" at center court.
March 23: The PBA Board of Governors unanimously approved the sale of the Alaska franchise to Converge ICT Solutions Inc. Former PBA commissioner Chito Salud became its team governor.
April 20: A fire broke out at the construction area beside the Smart Araneta Coliseum at around 11:00 am while the games of the 2021 PBA 3x3 second conference grand finals was underway. The 3x3 games were postponed and subsequently, Game 6 of the Governors' Cup finals between Barangay Ginebra and Meralco were rescheduled to April 22.

Opening ceremonies

The opening ceremony for this season was held at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig on July 16, 2021. Due to COVID-19 related restrictions, the traditional parade of teams with muses was not done and a “simple” opening ceremonies were held instead.
The first game of the Philippine Cup between the Alaska Aces and the Blackwater Bossing was played after the opening ceremonies.

Philippine Cup

The Philippine Cup started on July 16, was suspended on August 3, restarted on September 1, and ended on October 29, 2021.

Governors' Cup

The Governors' Cup started on December 6, 2021, was suspended on January 5, 2022, restarted on February 11, and ended on April 22.

Awards

Leo Awards

Most Valuable Player: Scottie Thompson Rookie of the Year: Mikey Williams Most Improved Player: Juami Tiongson First Mythical Team:

* Mikey Williams
* Scottie Thompson
* June Mar Fajardo
* Calvin Abueva
* Arwind Santos Second Mythical Team:
* Robert Bolick
* CJ Perez
* Ian Sangalang
* Christian Standhardinger
* Matthew Wright All-Defensive Team:
* Jio Jalalon
* Chris Ross
* Kelly Williams
* Cliff Hodge
* Arwind Santos
Samboy Lim Sportsmanship Award: Kevin Alas

PBA Press Corps Annual Awards

Defensive Player of the Year: Arwind Santos Scoring Champion: Mikey Williams Baby Dalupan Coach of the Year: Chot Reyes Mr. Quality Minutes: Allein Maliksi Danny Floro Executive of the Year: Alfrancis Chua Order of Merit:

* Mikey Williams
* Robert Bolick
* Ian Sangalang
* Matthew Wright
All-Rookie Team
* Mikey Williams
* Joshua Munzon
* Leonard Santillan
* Calvin Oftana
* Jamie Malonzo Game of the Season: San Miguel vs. NorthPort

Cumulative standings

Playoffs

This includes one-game playoffs to determine the last playoff participant.

3x3

The 3x3 season started on November 20, 2021, and ended on July 3, 2022. The final legs of the third conference were held in concurrence with the Philippine Cup of the succeeding PBA season.