Chris Porter, the high-flying NBA veteran, caught the fancy of basketball fans when he suited up for the Barangay Ginebra Kings in the 2005-2006 PBA Fiesta Conference. Just recently, he was rumored to take over the place of the vastly-improving B-Meg Derby Ace reinforcement Clif Brown.

But coach Ryan Gregorio doesn't want to screw up and quickly dismissed talks of an import change. He believes Brown was the reason why the Llamados have exceeded their expectations in the ongoing PBA Fiesta Cup.

"Come to think of it, we're 10-4 with Clif Brown as our import," Gregorio told GMANews.TV. "That's six games over the .500-mark. It will be risky if we make changes now. For now, the players and the coaching staff believe Clif is the right import for us."

"His energy rubs up on the rest of the players and they believe Brown complements them with his game, his energy and his ability to keep a hold of the team," he added.

The rumor on Porter taking over Brown's place quickly swirled around B-Meg Derby Ace camp, but Gregorio doesn't want to entertain thoughts of making changes this time.

"You cannot guarantee good things in an instant. In our present position, all we have to do is to fine-tune our team chemistry. Yes, we played bad basketball against San Miguel, but that cannot be attributed to Clif because he's doing a lot of positive things for us," said Gregorio.

"With Clif on board, we were able to lead in five categories, including points allowed, assist allowed and offensive rebounding allowed. Yes, we were averaging just above the 83-point mark in terms of scoring, but hey, we're winning games. We're in the quarterfinals and almost made the semis outright even when our target was just to make it to the top five. We exceeded our expectations with Clif around," he added.

But what's keeping Gregorio satisfied was the ability of his team to go this far minus the services of his best frontliner – Kerby Raymundo – who have yet to see action so far this conference because of injury on his pelvis.

Raymundo has already joined the team's practices and is expected to suit up for the Llamados in the quarterfinal round. But B-Meg Derby Ace has become a "banged up team" which worries Gregorio the most.

"We played 33 games last conference and a lot of my players were complaining and playing hurt. Ping (Marc Pingris), Roger (Yap), James (Yap) and Raffi have injuries and most of them had missed our previous practice sessions to rest their aching bodies," said Gregorio, the only coach in franchise's history to win two All-Filipino championships.

"But we will be ready for the quarterfinal round, that's for sure." - Rey Joble, GMANews.TV