Unpleasant Confrontation Spoiled Danny Ildefonso’s ties with Petron Blaze
Danny Ildefonso was a former two time MVP in the PBA. I’ve been a longtime fan of him eversince his San Miguel Beerman days. His “Raise the Roof” taunt always makes me animated. His post moves were very well documented, an arsenal that became a big problem for every opposing teams before. Those were the days when Danny I was still young, athletic and stupendous.
The San Miguel Management even offered him the maximum contract and insisted that they will never let Danny Ildefonso walk away from them that easy because of all the things that he had contributed for the team.
But Danny Ildefonso's final months with Petron were far from smooth, and it included a fracas with a team utility staff toward the end of last season, according to some sources.
Ildefonso became an unrestricted free agent on Saturday when he was informed through a text message that Petron would not be offering him a new contract despite spending his entire PBA career with San Miguel Corporation.
He was told not to report to practice days before the start of the season, after earning the fury of team management for his frank comments on moves made by the ballclub over the past few years.
But sources said there were already ominous signs that a successful 15-year partnership between player and team would end badly even before last season's Governors Cup Finals after Ildefonso reportedly went after a team staff, because of comments he made about the player's diminishing playing time.
“Nagalit si Danny I kaya sinugod niya yung staffer. Syempre ang laki niya hindi na nakapalag 'yung tao. Pero punit-punit 'yung damit nung tao 'nung bitawan niya,” said the source on the thrusting incident.
Sought for comment, Petron Gee Abanilla made no effort to deny the incident happened but begged off from talking about the issue. “No comment na lang ako, please,” he said.
On the other hand, former Petron guard Denok Miranda confirmed the incident but did not give details, saying he was late for practice "when it happened."
The other person that was involved in the said confrontation was purportedly Coach Rajko Toroman. Although there were no longer any hard feelings between Ildefonso and Serbian coach Rajko Toroman, now that both are out of the Petron camp.