Sol Mercado

Solomon Jemuel Rayos Mercado (born May 6, 1984) is a Filipino-American former professional basketball player in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA).

Known as the "Sol-Train", he had an impressive PBA rookie season and eventually became a reliable point guard for most of the teams he played for.

Mercado was originally drafted by the Alaska Aces as the fifth pick in the 2008 PBA draft.

However, he was immediately traded to the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters, together with Eddie Laure for Joe Devance and the 2009 and 2010 second round picks of Alaska.

With all the focus on Gabe Norwood, that year's first pick overall, and not much hype Mercado scored a record 29 points in his rookie debut game, the highest since Asi Taulava scored 32 points for Mobiline in his winning debut.

This achievement made him the PBA Player of the Week for the opening week.

Since then, he slowly became one of the PBA's elite point guards.

If not for a hamstring injury that sidelined him in a couple of games into their semifinal series against the Barangay Ginebra Kings, Rain or Shine would probably have gone farther in the Fiesta Conference.

A member of the All-Rookie Team, Mercado finished second to teammate Gabe Norwood for Rookie of the Year honors.

Mercado emerged as the team's top scorer with 13.5 points per game and his 4.5 assists per night did not only lead the team but was also number 6 overall among locals.

The only glitch in his rookie season was his 2.9 turnovers per game which ranked seventh overall and led the rookies in that category.

He was the team's cornerstone as he became one of the leaders for the Painters.

He scored a career-high 35 points in a loss to Alaska.

Against the Coca-Cola Tigers in a knockout game, he scored 28 points to lead them into the quarterfinals.

But unfortunately they would end up short after losing to the Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants.

He averaged 17.7 points in the eliminations then had a 45-point outburst against the B-Meg Derby Ace Llamados.

In another knock out game against the Tigers, he delivered crucial plays, despite fouling out, in a come from behind win.

Against the Llamados in Game 3, he almost recorded a triple double with 16 points 15 assists and nine rebounds.

But, in Game 5 of the series, they lost to the Llamados.

During this time, he had to deal with his father being in critical condition due to a severe heart attack.

Before the start of the 2011 PBA Commissioner's Cup, he and Jay-R Reyes were among the eight players involved in the three-way trade between Meralco, Rain or Shine and Air21 in what was easily one of the biggest trades that happened in that season.

Mercado, along with Paolo Bugia were shipped to the Bolts for Beau Belga.

In a 2012 Governors' Cup game, Mercado scored 24 points in a win over the Talk ‘N Text Tropang Texters.

During the 2012–13 Philippine Cup, he had 24 points and nine assists in a win over Globalport.

In their quarterfinal series against Alaska, he was injured, and Meralco did not advance.

Before the start of the 2013 PBA Commissioner's Cup, he along with Kelly Nabong, Jaypee Belencion and Yousif Aljamal were traded to GlobalPort Batang Pier for Rey Guevarra, Vic Manuel, Josh Vanlandingham and a 2015 first round pick.

This made him the first-ever player in PBA history to be traded or moved to another team after leading the league in scoring and assists the previous conference.

During the Commissioner's Cup, Mercado had three straight games where he had double-doubles.

He then had to sit out the rest of the conference as not to aggravate a right shoulder injury.

During the 2013 Governors' Cup, tension arose between him and his coach Junel Baculi over an uncalled timeout in a loss to the Barako Bull Energy.

The following game, he bounced back as he scored all of his 15 points in the second half in a comeback win over Meralco as they came back from 20 points down.

He was able to lead Globalport to its first playoff appearance, where they lost to the defending Governors' Cup champion Rain or Shine.

The following season, Mercado played a part in the early development of rookie teammate Terrence Romeo by becoming his mentor.

During the 2013–14 Philippine Cup, he scored a conference-high 33 points, with 19 of those coming in the second half of a comeback win over Meralco.

He missed several games due to a strain on his right Achilles.

Before the start of the 2014 PBA Commissioner's Cup, Mercado was traded to San Miguel in exchange for Alex Cabagnot.

The 2014 PBA Governors' Cup was one of the worst conferences of his career, as he averaged just 7.6 points on 35% shooting from the field.

Before the 2014–15 PBA Philippine Cup trade deadline, just before the playoffs, Mercado was traded back to GlobalPort, together with San Miguel's 2018 and 2019 second round picks, in exchange for Cabagnot.

He didn't approve of the trade, comparing the trade to someone going back to a bad ex-girlfriend on his Twitter account.

His only game in this stint was when Globalport was kicked out of the playoffs by Ginebra, in which he had nine points, four rebounds, and three assists.