Manny Pacquiao scored a unanimous decision over American Timothy Bradley in their world championship showdown last Sunday in Las Vegas, silencing his former conqueror at the proper arena where he is most dominant — the ring.

That victory erased all the heartaches that the Filipino people felt when Pacquiao — now the greatest Filipino pugilist of all time — suffered two consecutive defeats, one of them was against Juan Manuel Marquez of Mexico.

Pacquiao scored almost at will, pelting Bradley’s face with bomb after bomb after bomb, showing the world that the old hand speed is back and that the killer instinct in him has never left as a lot of people said.

It was again a time for jubilation for the Filipinos, a time when the entire country seemed to have stopped what it was doing to tune in to see one fight and talk about it for months to come.

Several stories have floated after the win, some of them post-mortem pieces about how he dominated Bradley, a number saying how a Pacquiao-Marquez V match-up is being worked on by promoter Bob Arum, and, of course, stories about what could be the fight of the century: Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather, is also being floated.

But the Filipino people were — pardon the pun — floored when several articles in sports websites appeared that Pacquiao is seriously considering playing in the Philippine Basketball Association as part of expansion ballclub KIA Philippines.

If these stories are true, Pacquiao playing in the PBA certainly is big news. The reports claimed that Pacquiao will get into the KIA lineup as a direct hire of the new franchise.

Pacquiao is reportedly very close to a fellow House of Representative member who owns KIA in the Philippines, that it won’t be a problem securing a spot in the team’s regular line-up.

But was it legitimate news? Of course. Will it do KIA good? Most certainly so, as Pacquiao donning their uniform will raise awareness of the KIA brand in the country to unprecedented heights.

But the biggest questions are: can it happen this year? And if it does, will it be good for the PBA in particular and the sport of pro basketball in general?

Since that bit of news broke out, scribes have been pelting the Office of the PBA Commissioner with questions on how Pacquiao playing in the PBA could happen.

The most general answer was that it can, provided that Pacquiao does go through all the usual channels that an ordinary rookie aspiring to play in the PBA takes.

First of those is applying for the Draft where he will join a pool of aspirants and wait to be picked by teams. That will certainly happen, what with the market appeal of the Saranggani Representative which can help any product that he plays for.

So that leaves KIA, which will have the 11th overall pick at the earliest, out in the cold since the other teams will certainly gobble up the chance to tap Pacquiao and add his boxing fans to the basketball fans that team already has.

The expansion clubs were not given direct hire privileges by the board of governors when it approved their respective applications. The three — NLEX and Black Water being the other two – would have to fill their roster with draft picks or get unrestricted free agents..

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Pacquiao became a boxing legend because of all the hard work that he has turned in — from his days as a help in a bakeshop to those truly trying days as an amateur and his early years as a pro. That’s a well-documented fact.

PBA players have gone on to play in Asia’s pioneering pro league also because of the hard work they’ve turned in.

There are a lot of players whose lives are also well-documented that it can be compared to what Pacquiao had gone through in his life as a boxer.

Most PBA players started playing in sandlots — much like Pacquiao on makeshift rings as an amateur — before finding their way to schools and playing in collegiate tournaments where they first made names for themselves. Pacquiao’s success as a prized fighter certainly didn’t come overnight. It was blood, sweat and tears all the way.

PBA players’ spots in teams also didn’t come overnight, they’ve worked so hard for it and they work even harder to stay in the league.

Would it also be a big story if say, Johnny Abarrientos, the 1996 MVP with Alaska, decided to take up boxing to fight Mayweather? What would the Filipino think about that?

That would certainly be a great gimmick — Abarrientos trying to slug it out with Mayweather and putting his life on the line just for a good show and the chance to try his hand at something he is not adept at doing.

Let’s leave boxing to boxers and pro basketball to those who really shoot hoops for a living and have done so for the longest time.