“Carlo Lastimosa cannot do any wrong!” roars the color commentator after Carlo hits his 3rd three of the game, en route to a scorching hot 38-point outing. The 6-foot shooting guard out of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde Blazers at one point was a must-watch super-scorer in Professional Basketball. The nephew of the legendary Jojo Lastimosa inherited a competitive spirit that lead him to develop an elite capability to score at all three levels. Once you let him go right, forget about it. Allow him to make a three and the microwave is on. The finesse on his teardrops, spin moves and layups can only be accustomed to select players at his level. But, with all that being said, it does not make sense for him to have only played 5 seasons in the PBA — or maybe it does? What did Carlo Lastimosa do wrong?
After not joining other colleges who had him on notice in his high school days in Cagayan De Oro, Carlo ultimately decided on De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde. Right off the bat he made a name for himself, becoming the top scorer of the team and winning Rookie of the Year in 2010. After his 2nd season, however, he would leave college out of Academic complications.
With the 20th overall pick, the Barako Bull Energy selects Carlo Lastimosa. He would spend his first 2 seasons with the ball club that drafted him and average 6 pts in 13.5 mins on 36% fg shooting. The potential was there, but the volume wasn’t. Minutes given were inconsistent and the efficiency was left more to be desirable. More opportunities can only give Carlo more leeway to blossom on what he could be; which was exactly what he got by 2015, where he would get traded to Blackwater for Brian Heruela. It is in Blackwater where we would see the best of Carlo Lastimosa.
In his new team, his playing time was raised all the way to 26 mins per game, and it was where he played and started the most games of his career. The stars started to align for the 25-year old, as his stats would take huge leaps from the seasons before and have career games that would forever be stamped to the memories of the people who knows Carlo Lastimosa. Carlo tripled his scoring average, making it to 18 ppg on 43% fg shooting. He had his most notable games starting with his first 30+ point performance in his pro career, which was against Globalport on November 29, 2015, not to mention it was off the bench. Just a couple weeks later, now as a starter, Carlo exploded for 38 points on a ridiculous 70% fg shooting on a win against his former team, on a night where he cannot do any wrong. 15 days later, it would be a 35 point performance on 54% fg shooting versus Rain or Shine. Just when you thought things are already getting out of hand with these multiple 30-point performances, think again as on February 10, 2016 against Talk N’ Text, Carlo went insane and dropped 39 of them on a red hot 62% fg shooting. Within his breakout tenure with the Blackwater Elite, Carlo Lastimosa had eleven 20+ point games, and scored single digits only 4 times in that stretch. He also had a notable game where he hit a game-winner over 2 Meralco defenders with 3 seconds left. Mind you, he was only 25 years old. At that age with such performances, the sky should be the limit. He even almost won the Most Improved Player award.
However, after 34 games with Blackwater, Lastimosa was traded to NLEX, a team in desperation for a guard who can put the ball in the basket under their new head coach Yeng Guiao. It is also worth noting that JoLas was also an assistant coach for the Road Warriors. From here on, Carlo Lastimosa came down to earth and became human again. Averaging only 8 pts in 16 mins per game. on his third team, he couldn’t even sniff 25 points in a game. After basically the same number of games he had with Blackwater, Lastimosa, at this point a 2-time all-star, in a shocking turn of events got cut by the Road Warriors, making him a free agent. On January 18, 2018, Carlo finds a new home with Kia. But the horror continues, as it looked like he’s back to where he came from, with similar averages of 6 pts on 36% Field Goal shooting in 14.6 mins of playing time. And that was it for Carlo Lastimosa’s PBA career. After 4 teams in 5 seasons, he has since been out of the league.
Carlo Lastimosa’s contract when he was with NLEX was supposed to last until 2019. The last game he played in the PBA was on October of 2018. On such a petty note to the ending of a pro ball career, you could only ask yourself: what happened? Yeng Guiao would answer that question by talking about the fast turnover of guards. In NLEX, they reserved their priorities to guys like Kevin Alas and Kiefer Ravena. Along with Lastimosa, numerous other guards were also boxing out each other for a spot on the team.
But a constant 20 point scorer from the year before can’t just fall in a downward spiral like that. Was it not the scoring? But rather the lack of other guard skills? Averaging 1.7 asts with the Road Warriors and basically only a dime per game his whole career, maybe letting him go wouldn’t be such a tough decision in systems that emphasizes ball movement over anything. In Yeng Guiao fashion, the coach reportedly at one point yelled at Carlo to pass the ball.
But what if he never got to have to be with the team that made him a misfit in the first place? That’s right, on a bottom-feeder that already starves for talent, why would Blackwater essentially give Carlo away? At this point only God knows the answer to such a gray-area topic. The freedom Carlo had touching the basketball as a member of the Blackwater was limitless. He could do anything he wanted offensively, even if it meant dribbling the air out of the basketball. But speaking of basketball, the game requires 2 ends, offense and defense. Carlo Lastimosa’s offense? Check. Duh. What about his defense? If an article is written about his defense it would certainly be the shortest read in the world.
Not even making it past 0 on his steals and blocks stats, Carlo was criticized for never minding about the defensive end and only caring about playing 1v5. But let’s try to put our feet in his shoes for a couple seconds; what would be the point of playing defense on a team that went 7–27? 7 wins. 27 losses. That was the record of Blackwater during Carlo’s breakout season. A team with a better situation for Carlo with a winning culture could’ve helped. Or maybe not. Maybe those were dead stats we witnessed during his peak season. We’ll never know.
But with all those being said, it still should never be denied that Carlo Lastimosa was supposed to be more than a 5-season PBA career. So, what did Carlo Lastimosa do wrong? The answer isn’t that he did something wrong. It’s that all he did was score and not do anything else right. What an amazing problem to have, putting points on the board as a way of suffering.
Carlo has now lived comfortably in a new home, but this time in a different village. Now extending his pro career in the MPBL, Carlo Lastimosa continues to do Carlo Lastimosa things. Just get buckets. The 2022 season saw him in his best in the league so far, where he averaged 14 pts while having the freedom to attempt 16 shots per game.
What’s next for Carlo Lastimosa?
As of recent there has been a MPBL-to-PBA pipeline that has been happening. Perform well in the MPBL and a PBA team can hand you a contract. But that is easier said than done. For now, Carlo Lastimosa, 32 years old, remains not even a what-if, but rather a should’ve-been at the highest level.
