MANILA, Philippines – A change of scenery proved to be what Christian Standhardinger needed to show he is a bona fide PBA superstar. 

Standhardinger capped off his stellar campaign with NorthPort in the 2019-2020 PBA Governors’ Cup by winning the Best Player of the Conference, beating out Jayson Castro and June Mar Fajardo. 

Traded from San Miguel in the middle of the conference, Standhardinger displayed that he can put up monster numbers and lead a team to success. 

Standhardinger helped propel NorthPort to just its second semifinals appearance in franchise history as he normed 22.7 points, 12.8 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 1.4 steals in 11 games with his new team. 

Those numbers were a far cry from his averages of 3.5 points and 4.0 rebounds in his 4 games with San Miguel in the season-ending conference. 

Arguably his best game came when he put up 33 points, 23 rebounds, and 7 assists as NorthPort nipped NLEX in the quarterfinals to become only the fourth No. 8 seed in PBA history to eliminate the No. 1 team. 

Standhardinger also made history in that thrilling triple-overtime match by playing for 61:01 minutes – the most by a local in a single game in PBA history.

Due to his breakout conference, the Filipino-German earned the nod for his first BPC award in just his second season in the league. 

Standhardinger had 1011 points in the landslide win that saw him earn 396 statistical points and 433 media, 150 PBA, and 32 player votes – nearly 400 points more than former San Miguel teammate Fajardo.

Fajardo led in statistics and player votes with 438 and 140, respectively, but received only 75 PBA and 4 media votes for a total of 657 points. 

TNT’s Castro garnered 615 points followed by Columbian’s CJ Perez, who had 506 points, and NLEX’s Kiefer Ravena, who had 481 points. – Rappler.com