YOU HAD agreed with your friends to go on an adventure with all related things prepared.
The next thing you know, the trip was scrapped for reasons challenging sanity.
Your reaction, of course, would be a mixture of shock, anger and frustration. The excitement and fun changed to apathy and gloom.
More or less, this speaks of the SBP’s initial pull-out from the Asian Games which will be jointly held in the Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Palembang come Aug. 12 to Sept. 2. This greatly frustrated the majority of this basketball-manic republic. It happened just hours after a meeting with the PBA board that agreed on sending the core of the Rain or Shine team to the Asiad.
The nation’s governing body for basketball partly said in a statement that the move was done to “improve its systems and to prepare programs that will better ensure respectable performance of our teams internationally of which our countrymen can be truly proud.”
The programs are well-placed and the pro league had been cooperating in the preparations and as far as the Asian region is concerned, we had done well and can really be proud of the results.
It is the system that needs to be improved. To “better ensure respectable performance”, probably it’s high time to change the national team coach and let him manage full time his patron’s TV station and its affiliates.
Two foreigners had handled the Gilas with favorable results and since obscene amounts of money had been spent already, better spend it on these people.
They were practically raw and inexperienced in overseas competitions but the college team sent to the recently concluded Jones Cup did very well against national and international club teams. They were mentored by a former Gilas coach and except for two main guys, he used whoever did well on court. It would be nice to see him back as the national team’s chief tactician.
In all fairness, the present Gilas coach had done well but as we all would like to say, move on na for the better.
The patron saint of Philippine basketball said he doesn’t want to send a token team to the Asiad. My freaking goodness! Are the 10 FIBA-suspended players the only players we have? What’s the point in having a national team pool? The statement is an insult to the country’s abundance of talented basketball players.
We’re passionate about this game and a busload of them can replace and in fact even do better than the infamous 10.
Further, the godfather added, “The overriding consideration is, given the suspension meted out by FIBA on the Gilas team, it’s a setback to the Gilas program so we decided we should focus on reviving that program and getting the team back on its feet.”
Revive? Was the program abandoned, shelved? The local basketball community is too wise to swallow this explanation. Is it because the pet coach won’t be calling the shots for the team and it is not the patron’s team who will represent the country?
Or did the P13-million penalty imposed by FIBA took a huge bite off the Gilas budget?
The focus should now be on the core of the towering Batang Gilas and this team of the future just might be the country’s saving grace in the world basketball stage.
We must set our sights on Asian success rather than focus on the world stage. Once we will be at par with Asian powerhouses Iran and China and As-Pac powers Australia and New Zealand, only then can we confidently say that we are ready for the world.
Probably the local basketball gods had seen the light that they changed their minds and decided to send a “token” lineup.
A beefed-up Rain or Shine team to the Asiad will represent the country well and as per reports, already had jelled well as a unit as majority on the team are familiar with the coach’s system.
Likewise, Asian Games organizers welcomed the development. No podium finishes were promised but they would try to improve on the seventh place finish made in the 2014 Asiad.
PH basketball won four consecutive Asiad golds from 1951 to 1962. That time, medals were decided on the top three teams who had the fewest number of loses and we topped the tournament without a single defeat.
The next time we medalled was in 1986 when we took home the bronze. The all-pro Centennial Team surrendered to China during the title match in 1990, settling for the silver.
The bronze in 1998 at Bangkok was the last Asian Games basketball medal we had. We’re not targeting a medal this time but a finish higher than seventh. A place in the semi-finals is already an accomplishment.
All things considered, the reality is who holds the purse has the final say. Yes, he who controls the bank calls the shots. In everything and everywhere, this is reality even if advance ka mag-isip or papalit ang isip./PN
