The 1982 San Miguel Beermen season was the eight season of the franchise in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA)
Contents
Off-season transactions
The Beermen acquired three players from the defunct CDCP Road Builders; comebacking Manny Paner, who was part of the original Royal Tru-Orange lineup in 1975, Anthony Dasalla and Renato Lobo.
The team also signed three rookies from the MICAA; Marte Saldaña from multi-titled APCOR, Kenneth Yap, who last played for Jag Jeans, and Renato Kabigting of Crispa.
Awards
Summary
San Miguel Beer hired former Tefilin import Norman Black as their reinforcement for the season's First Conference. Black debut with 48 points in leading the beermen to a 108-98 win over Great Taste on March 9. The beermen won 9 of their first 10 games, losing only to Toyota in the first round and emerge with the best record with 13 wins and 5 losses at the end of the elimination phase. The league adopted for the first time, a best-of-three, best-of-five and best-of-seven series to determine a champion. San Miguel went on to play the U/tex Wranglers in the best-of-five semifinal series, winning 3 games to 1, to enter the finals against the Toyota Super Corollas. The beermen led the series by winning the first two games but Toyota came back to win the championship that went to a full seven games.
In the five-team Invitational Conference that includes a visiting team from South Korea, the beermen were on their second straight finals appearance in the season, they played the Crispa Redmanizers in the best-of-three title series. San Miguel beat Crispa, 103-102, in the deciding third game to win the Invitational Championship.
The beermen acquired Lim Eng Beng from U/tex in a trade with Alex Tan before the start of the Third Conference. Norman Black is playing in his third straight conference in the season with San Miguel, teaming up with Terry Sykes in the beermen's first two games where they lost. Sykes was replace by Marvin Johnson, who led the team to their first win against Gilbey's Gin on September 2. Johnson played five games in the elimination phase until former import Aaron James was recalled back to replace him. San Miguel finish with a 10-8 card and advances to the semifinal round along with Toyota and early qualifiers N-Rich Coffee and Gilbey's by posting a 2-1 won-loss slate in the quarterfinals and winning their do-or-die encounter with U/tex. In the semifinal round, the beermen lost to Gilbey's Gin, 101-102, in their last match on December 7 and failed to create a four-way tie for the two finals berth. San Miguel settled for third place in the season-ending conference.