Philippines Senior National Team Thread Vol. V

[thatweirdguy]

schonny is small, whoever taught him being 6'4 as always does believe in Tallano gold

Haha. Being 6'4 would really make him standout standing next to other players. He looked slightly taller than the other guards

[JAMSKIE]

schonny is small, whoever taught him being 6'4 as always does believe in Tallano gold

Hahaha! Tallano gold! That one fairy tale being bought by some Marcos loyalist who are as fools as those who believed that the earth is flat.

Anyway, the first time I read that Schonny Winston stands 6-foot-4 & upon seeing him play in the UAAP, I was convinced there is no way he is 6-4 or 6-3.

I just hope Winston plays for Gilas in at least 1 game of the 6th window. I think Winston has a good chance ending up playing as a point guard for Gilas in the near future. I think he has more potential playing PG than CJ Perez mainly becoz he played PG in his college days in the US. He already has the reps. The thing about Schonny is that he is a natural scorer.

[sroth3839]

Hahaha! Tallano gold! That one fairy tale being bought by some Marcos loyalist who are as fools as those who believed that the earth is flat.

Anyway, the first time I read that Schonny Winston stands 6-foot-4 & upon seeing him play in the UAAP, I was convinced there is no way he is 6-4 or 6-3.

I just hope Winston plays for Gilas in at least 1 game of the 6th window. I think Winston has a good chance ending up playing as a point guard for Gilas in the near future. I think he has more potential playing PG than CJ Perez mainly becoz he played PG in his college days in the US. He already has the reps. The thing about Schonny is that he is a natural scorer.

Idk but that TO stat is rather concerning.

[carmelo7]

Idk but that TO stat is rather concerning.

agree, but maybe in DLSU they let them do whatever he wants but with Gilas it'll be more deliberate esp in defense with Coach Tim. Pero sayang i was hoping he'd be at least 6'3 or like a Newsome with better all around PG skills. But I see those qualities (and size) with Sedrick Barefield but of course ineligible

[JAMSKIE]

Schonny Winston should have played for Strong Group team now playing in the Dubai international tournament. The stint in Dubai could serve as a gauge of how Winston wud fair in a high level game.

[JOI2dWorld]

Yeah. With Ginebra, he had a wing rotation of 6'5" Jeremiah Gray, 6'5" Justin Brownlee, 6'7" Jamie Malonzo, and 6'3" Aljon Mariano, the latter three playing the 3 and the 4, and Gray playing 2/3. Cone has liked size in his frontline, and glad that's extended to the wings. Honestly, Ginebra with Brownlee has become the model lineup for Philippine basketball to adjust with the times.

Ironically, in the PBA, it's the most old-school coach adopting small ball as it is supposed to be. The players having the skills of smaller players, but enough size to switch onto bigger positions. And that came in handy for Ginebra against Bay Area. Had the height and versatility to match up against their taller forwards.

i'm always curious to see how a younger version of devance , dillinger and mercado will play with the current ginebra lineup , imagine instead of Mariano it's Devance and a younger version of Dillinger is a solid wing defender and another ball handler while mercado is better than pinto

[paolylo]

I hate how we adapted imperial for height when we're supposed to be Asian region measuring things by metric. 5cm is A LOT but if one claims to be 6'2, he's either 185 or 190cm, and that's not even counting the shoes. I'm past measuring height as a requirement to be able to play or defend certain positions on the court. There are other things such as wingspan and lateral movement that can either compensate or handicap a player's height or lack thereof.

I look at Kai Sotto who is 7'1 (or 7'4 if you hug his nuts), but his arms are shorter than most 218cm+ players and isn't as athletic as a 6'10 black big man. Are we gonna crucify Winston playing 2 guard because it looks like he's 2 inches shorter? Konting common sense naman.

[carmelo7]

I hate how we adapted imperial for height when we're supposed to be Asian region measuring things by metric. 5cm is A LOT but if one claims to be 6'2, he's either 185 or 190cm, and that's not even counting the shoes. I'm past measuring height as a requirement to be able to play or defend certain positions on the court. There are other things such as wingspan and lateral movement that can either compensate or handicap a player's height or lack thereof.

I look at Kai Sotto who is 7'1 (or 7'4 if you hug his nuts), but his arms are shorter than most 218cm+ players and isn't as athletic as a 6'10 black big man. Are we gonna crucify Winston playing 2 guard because it looks like he's 2 inches shorter? Konting common sense naman.

common sense? looks who's talking

[paolylo]

common sense? looks who's talking

Ahihihi.

[IPC]

Option is good but I just saying if the reality is that option is not being use then is no different from others who have restriction. Besides the reason for unlimited is to make players use to playing taller opponents. Thats not happening in B League as NT was beaten badly by Aus and China. So why is not working in Japan.
Is that really a problem in Philippines NT performance that unlimited height and multiple imports will solve

Not on its own really, the problems of the NT and the program are clearly more complicated than just this aspect.

It's the culture here, both in play style and player development, like what jasper222 posted in the Filipino Players in Foreign Leagues thread.

I've said it in a past post, but our genetics aren't the reason we're not excelling in ball. It's our CULTURE. If Japan can mass produce fast twitch muscles which aren't genetic in an East Asian body (and anybody who's on top of Japanese sports will see that they're starting to all be everywhere in world mainline sports) then we can too. But our culture is holding us back.

Basketball culture in the PH is always emphasis on offense than defense but our fixation on offense is what's holding us back entirely, the root of the problem. Back in FIBA 2013 the commentator said that "you never know who's going to score next", which if you think about it is a thinly veiled criticism about how inconsistent we are as a team, that Gilas has 0 defined roles. We are not playing the same basketball as everyone else, like that 1998 Korean coach and Julio Lamas said about us. Our roles are all best scorer, secondary scorer, tertiary scorer, etc etc. We barely have any locals that don't look at the basket during offense, the only one I can think of in the modern era is Dorian Pena during his stints in Ginebra and Globalport. Culture is also why lineups in the grassroots are based on height, not role. If the biggest guy on the team can play PG, during intramurals or inter-school games he'll be slotted at C. The next coach will do that, then the next, then the next...what happens is that we grow stagnant as a basketball country and our defense will also suffer as a result, since it's tailor-made for what the PH game is, not what everyone else in the world is playing. We're getting by with our individual skills, but as our placement on the FIBA rankings is showing, it's not enough.

Genetics will give you the best possible result, yes. But it's not so much genetics as it's about effort and knowing your role. Mbappe is a genius of football and has superior genetics over Messi, but we know who won the World Cup. It's about that teamplay and knowing the game inside out.

Tab Baldwin is trying to change that, but ironically it's sometimes doing more harm internationally. Angel Baby Oppa (Dave Ildefonso) has been chastised by Korean fans saying that he's not being "selfish" enough, a result of trying to do all the little things in ADMU, not to mention his defensive footwork which is suffering because of the slow paced offense here. Kai had to relearn his footwork during his 2 seasons in the NBL to start keeping up with the Aussie bigs, and even then you still have people who aren't acknowledging the physical limits of a 7'3 giant. Kai is already way faster than Abai and Barney, or EJ Feihl, Bonel Balingit, etc. Any faster and you're expecting somebody of Joel Embiid status, which Kai doesn't have (yet). Kai is one of the proofs that we can overcome the cultural limit of what has been instilled in the Philippines. Carl Tamayo has superb handles and footwork that hasn't been seen yet in PH basketball, while Oftana is stuck here playing big man ball as a small man.

We need more willing screeners, more big men willing to shoot 3s and run, more teammates willing to hustle like Scottie and Calvin Abueva, etc. That starts in the grassroots and if that doesn't change, then our current predicament will never change too.

[KoolAid]

Urghh reading about Oftana makes me reminisce about Kobe Paras when he was still a teenager. Remember the hype with those HS basketball mixtapes and when he committed to going to UCLA?!?. Oftana is what Paras should have been. IMO

[JAMSKIE]

How possible is it that we maintain the core of Gilas, say a nucleus of 9 or 10 players, that would consistently play in the qualifying windows & tournament proper in a 4-year cycle so that we that team would be able to established more than enough cohesion or chemistry? This early I'm already thinking of the 2027 FIBA World Cup & the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup.

I think Gilas would be significant stronger & more consistent if we keep the line-up intact for a cycle of say 4 to 5 yrs. Hindi yung paiba-iba tayo ng line-up for every tournament or window qualifier.

I say we maintain a nucleus of Kai, AJ Edu, Tamayo, Balti, Malonzo, Dwight, Oftana, Heading, Schonny Winston, Iskati, Parks, and a naturalized player for a 4 year cycle.

[JAMSKIE]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Yun ang lamang ng ibang teams like Jordan, Iran, Korea, China over us. These teams are able to maintain their respective national teams' core for a considarable period, say at least 5 years, hence they have the edge over us in terms of cohesion over us.

[paliganibossalfrancis]

How possible is it that we maintain the core of Gilas, say a nucleus of 9 or 10 players, that would consistently play in the qualifying windows & tournament proper in a 4-year cycle so that we that team would be able to established more than enough cohesion or chemistry? This early I'm already thinking of the 2027 FIBA World Cup & the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup.

I think Gilas would be significant stronger & more consistent if we keep the line-up intact for a cycle of say 4 to 5 yrs. Hindi yung paiba-iba tayo ng line-up for every tournament or window qualifier.

I say we maintain a nucleus of Kai, AJ Edu, Tamayo, Balti, Malonzo, Dwight, Oftana, Heading, Schonny Winston, Iskati, Parks, and a naturalized player for a 4 year cycle.

That's a great idea but availability will always be the question. Those players you've mentioned will set us up to be contenders within the next 4-5 year cycle (except Schonny who's not yet proven, Balti who hasn't shown anything commendable in the pros and Heading who will be too much of an undersized 2 in the near future).

JC and Kai will be our 1-2 punch for World-level competitions, them together puts us in an entirely different dimension. Imagine how much more these 2 will improve over that 4 year span. It's also convenient that we have players like Edu, Dwight, Malonzo, Parks, CJ Perez and Iskati, these players give us assurance that we can match up with powerhouses. But for FIBA Asia Cup, SEA Games, Asian Games and Qualifying Windows, we kinda have to settle for who's available, and I believe that's where SBP tests out different players to see if they can fit into the scheme of things (example: although talent is not a question, Roosevelt Adams and Thirdy Ravena were proven not viable options for FIBA competitions)

[paliganibossalfrancis]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Yun ang lamang ng ibang teams like Jordan, Iran, Korea, China over us. These teams are able to maintain their respective national teams' core for a considarable period, say at least 5 years, hence they have the edge over us in terms of cohesion over us.

Thing is we've beaten all these teams already, we've always had the edge over them talent-wise and height-wise now we are not in a disadvantage, it's only a matter of putting the right pieces together at the right time. For example in the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship, we were a Junemar Fajardo and Japeth Aguilar away from a 2016 Olympic berth. Instead we had an undersized RDO & Sonny Thoss guard Zhou Qi and Yi Jianlian.

Asian Games 2018 where we placed 5th, we only needed 1 more big (we had Erram, Almazan, Asi and CStan *facepalm*) and a tall wing with reliable shooting and we could've won gold.

But oh well, I hope SBP, MVP & SMC already learned from these mistakes.