What’s in store for Smart Gilas?
By Sid Ventura
For Yahoo! Southeast Asia
The Smart Gilas Team Pilipinas (notice it’s no longer called the developmental team), fresh off a sixth-place finish at the recent Asian Games, is already gearing up for next year’s FIBA-Asia joust that will determine the continent’s lone representative to the 2012 London Olympics. Assistant coach Allan Gregorio told me recently that the team will take a break and resume practice on December 28.
According to a report in one of the major dailies, the team is set to participate in three big tournaments next year as part of their build-up—one in Dubai in January plus a couple of regular tourneys in the middle of the year, the FIBA-Asia Champions Cup and the Jones Cup. They’ll also spend some time in Serbia for more training.
Which is all good. But will it be enough? If Guangzhou is any indication, Gilas is going to need all the help it can get. The sixth-place finish wasn’t exactly disastrous; in fact, it was what you might expect from that line-up. All things considered, finishing within the fourth-to-sixth range was realistic, and a podium finish would have been a bonus.
But that was the Asian Games. Consider that China and Iran, the top two Asian teams in last year’s FIBA-Asia championship, didn’t even have their NBA players Yi Jianlian and Hamed Haddadi in Guangzhou, while Lebanon, also an Asian heavyweight, begged off from the Asiad. In the FIBA-Asia championship, China and Iran will most likely be at full strength, and Lebanon is sure to be there.
So if Gilas is to improve on its finish in the Asian Games, it will have to do so against stronger opposition. Of course, Marcus Douthit, the naturalized American center, will now be around to give Gilas some much-needed inside strength. But even with Douthit on board, man for man the rest of the Gilas line-up just doesn’t have the firepower to beat the likes of Iran and China, which is why I think the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) will again run to the PBA for help.
And even that is not a guarantee of success. While the national team will certainly be more competitive if it were backstopped by the likes of James Yap, Asi Taulava, Kelly Williams and Jimmy Alapag (four players I personally would like to see included), the road to London will still be wrought with danger. But hey, as they say in the vernacular, bilog ang bola. Anything can happen.
Now, assuming the SBP does ask the PBA to lend a few of its players again, and assuming further that this hybrid Gilas-PBA team performs strongly (as in making it to the top three), here’s my question: what will become of the program now?
The SBP’s decision to ask the PBA to lend Taulava, Williams and Sol Mercado to the national team recently is, to my mind, already a tacit admission that they can’t get win with the current roster. Let’s face it: the SBP has veered away from Smart Gilas’ original purpose – that is, to set up a national developmental pool from the amateur ranks and independent of the PBA, with the goal of qualifying for the London Olympics.
The Gilas team was formed in 2008 with some of the country’s top amateur players forming its core. I say “some” because even at the onset, a number of cagers, notably La Salle’s Rico Maierhofer and San Beda’s Ogie Menor, opted to join the PBA draft instead, while others like Ateneo’s Ryan Buenafe, University of Cebu’s Junmar Fajardo and UE’s Paul Lee ultimately declined their invitations.
Serbian coach Rajko Toroman was given a three-year window to make Gilas a competitive team, culminating in a strong showing at the 2011 FIBA-Asia championships. Leading up to last month’s Asian Games, the core of the team had been together for two years, and while there has been some progress (this team evidently is far more cohesive than the two PBA teams that represented the country in the last two FIBA-Asia championships), it’s also clear Toroman does not really have the best amateur players available.
In this article written shortly after the PBA-backed national team finished a dismal eighth in the 2009 FIBA-Asia championships, SBP executive director Noli Eala said the SBP was taking full control of the forming of the national team (which, in effect, really meant Toroman’s team), but at the same time he didn’t close the door on the possibility of PBA players reinforcing the team.
In that same article, Yeng Guiao, the coach of that PBA selection, predicted that the SBP would be running to the PBA for help sooner rather than later, and his words proved to be prophetic. It only took the SBP a little over a year after this article came out to knock on the PBA’s door again.
Which is why I have a feeling they’ll do it again for next year’s FIBA-Asia joust. This is the big ticket, the one tournament for which Toroman was hired and the Smart Gilas team was formed, and while the team itself has improved since its formation two years ago, it’s painfully clear they need reinforcements from the pro ranks.
Now, if reinforcing the national pool with PBA players is what it takes for the Philippines to have a better shot at that London slot, then so be it. But this is no longer in line with Gilas’ whole reason for being, so what direction will the SBP now take? Will some Gilas members train all year round, only to be eased out for major tournaments to accommodate PBA players (see: Dylan Ababou and Aldrech Ramos)? Already, with the looming entry of Douthit, another player, most likely Jason Ballesteros, is sure to be bumped off.
I get what the SBP is doing with Smart Gilas. The idea of having a national pool that does nothing but train for international competition is something we haven’t had since the early 80s. But right now I think the program is caught between a rock and a hard place. Stand pat on sending amateurs and they will get creamed. Get help from the PBA for big tournaments and they defeat the purpose of having a national training pool.
Perhaps what the SBP can do is sit down again with the PBA and map out a long-term plan for the national team. Given Eala’s contentious history with the pro league, I know that’s easier said than done. Still, maybe an arrangement can be worked out for the PBA to lend three to four players for the FIBA-Asia only and, if we get really lucky, the Olympics and FIBA World Championships. This would be not unlike what China and Iran are doing with their NBA players, who only join their national teams for the FIBA-Asia championships. In the meantime, let’s also not ignore our youth team, which finished fifth in Asia this year and fourth last year. There’s an abundance of talent there just waiting to be tapped. The SBP should see to it that the youth team becomes a pipeline of talent to the national pool, which is the system in many other countries.
I know a lot of these suggestions are a long shot, and maybe even a fantasy. But you never know. As they say, bilog ang bola.
