MANILA, Philippines--Professional athletes and their vehicles. It’s like serious pet owners and their dogs. Sooner or later, they gravitate to the ones that reflect their personality.

The tough guys have their pit bulls. The dainty ladies have their poodles. Defense-mowing big men have their SUVs and the sleek swingmen have their classy Z4s. With professional athletes needing to market their talents nowadays, they’ve stopped simply saying: “This is my car.”

So it’s a wee bit difficult to peg Mick Pennisi based on the car that he regularly drives.

Put it this way. After another brutal San Miguel Beer practice, the 6-foot-8 trey-tossing enforcer gets dressed and folds himself into a car that will take him to his team office for an hour’s weight session.

And when Beermen coach Siot Tanquingcen sees his center, he yells out jokingly: “To the Batmobile!”

Not really a Batman contraption. Mick Pennisi drives a Kia Picanto.

Yeah, sure, he owns a gas-guzzling SUV, too. But on most days, whether it’s picking up his kids, going to practice, going to game or even going on road trips, the guy with inked forearms and a mean game scowl that contradicts a laid-back and humorous personality drives a silver-gray Kia Picanto with racing stripes running from front to back.

“The key is stretching,” Pennisi said, when asked how he fits himself into the driver’s seat. He pauses for a while, and then bursts out in laughter. “No, I’m just kidding.”

There are two reasons why the big men of the Philippine Basketball Association purchase SUV. The first one’s the same reason why they scramble for exit row seats in airlines every time they have a road game.

It’s called legroom

Pennisi sits behind the wheel and shows how much comfortable he can get in a compact you’d expect would burst at the seams when he steps into it.

“Have you ever ridden in a Picanto before?” he asked. “Try it. It’s got ample legroom.”

The Inquirer tried it. And even when there’s a marked difference between a 5-foot-6 scribe and a wide-bodied center, you have to agree that the legroom is quite comfortable.

And then there’s another reason. The match-your-personality one. A spanking SUV adds a streak of meanness to a big man’s personality. It boosts his credibility as a tough inside banger and shot-changer. But Pennisi feels he doesn’t shortchange himself by driving a compact.

“If the car conveys my personality, then it’s telling people that I’ve got no ego,” he explained. “I am who I am. The team pays me to do certain things and I want to believe they’re getting their money’s worth on me.”

Pennisi certainly gets his money’s worth from the little car he playfully calls “Bumblebee” despite its closer resemblance to two other Transformers characters, Skids and Mudflap.

“I get looks all the time and I’m sure people have a good laugh when they see me driving this car,” he said. “But guess who laughs last when we’re at the gas station and we’re filling up?”

“Nowadays, you really need to be more money-wise,” he explained. “Basketball is not forever and the little things here, the little things there that you do all add up in the end to big savings.”

On a full tank, Pennisi said, the car runs for about two weeks before needing a refill. And that’s with his wife, Jennifer, traveling from Pasig to Taytay six times a week to attend nursing classes. Sometimes, he takes the car to practice at Acropolis. He even rides in it to the games when he has the chance.

Long road trips

“It’s really very economical.”

He’s taken it to long road trips, particularly to Subic for vacation. And that urban legend about compacts getting blown off the freeway by overtaking monster trucks? A myth.

“We had no problems whatsoever.”

Which is why if ever a PBA player would ask Mick what to buy for a second car, he’d suggest a compact. “You get to save a lot on gas money,” he said.

And there are other advantages, too.

During that great flood brought by Tropical Storm “Ondoy,” Pennisi was in Pangasinan for an exhibition match and got a call from his wife saying she was stranded at St. Luke’s in Quezon City’s flood-prone E. Rodriguez avenue. She said she was going to do something about the car because it was vulnerable to the rising waters.

She managed to cross the flooded street to the car and realized that she had to move it to safety. She got in and drove around the parking lot of a supermarket nearby. All the elevated parking spaces were filled and cars were moving around looking for a safe place to park.

In one particular spot there was an open space between two SUVs but several cars could not maneuver into it because the space was too tight.

Jennifer Pennisi simply folded the side mirrors of the Picanto and guided it into the spot.

“Any other car wouldn’t have fitted in,” Pennisi said.

Sure enough, as the floodwaters rose, the cars in the lower parking spaces were being swept around. The little Kia Picanto was safe. And better yet for the cager, who couldn’t contact his wife as her cellphone batteries had dried up, the Picanto gave Jennifer a cozy, dry place to wait out the flood.

And Mick Pennisi has his little Bumblebee to be thankful for.