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THE
Basketball Association of the Philippines-Samahang
Basketbol ng Pilipinas (BAP-SBP) is showing it wants to
do things by the book.
Although
it’s top officials really want players from the
Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) to form the
national team that will compete in the Southeast Asia
Basketball Association (Seaba) championship, the BAP-SBP
deferred deciding on that after a meeting Monday night.
Instead,
the fledgling caging group said it will wait for a
selection committee “mandated to do the job”—five men
from a group of BAP-SBP board members representing the
school and commercial sectors of local basketball.
Chino
Trinidad, Michel Lhuillier, Wilson Young, Lito Alvarez,
Bernie Atienza, Junjun Capistrano, Fritz Gaston and
Christian Tan are among the board members BAP-SBP
president Manny Pangilinan will convene to discuss the
Seaba participation.
But in a
statement, the Samahan said all indications “point to
the immediate formation of the all-pro team with the
proximity of the Seaba joust and the Fiba-Asia
championship.”
“Under
the BAP-SBP charter, the five-man selection committee is
the authority in charting the course of action for Seaba
and the Southeast Asian Games,” said PBA commissioner
Noli Eala, who was among a group that met with
Pangilinan Monday.
“But
because of the nonideal situation, everybody is biased
toward putting together the best team now,” added Eala,
also the spokesman for BAP-SBP.
The PBA
chief joined pro league chairman Ricky Vargas, San
Miguel PBA board representative Robert Non and national
team coach Chot Reyes in the meeting with the telecom
tycoon at the PLDT offices in Makati City.
Given
the Philippines’ situation—in which the International
Basketball Federation, or Fiba, has yet to lift the
suspension on the country from competing in events it
sanctions—Eala said the national team under Reyes could
use the Seaba tilt to train for the Fiba-Asia
tournament, adding it would be the “ideal setup.”
The
Seaba is the qualifying meet for the Fiba-Asia tourney,
which in turn is the qualifier for the 2008 Beijing
Olympics.
Eala
also said the BAP-SBP leadership is “considering options
in a bid to come up with an impressive performance” in
the RP team’s return to international play.
Reyes,
however, has suggested that with only five months to
prepare for the Fiba-Asia championship in
Saitama,
Japan,
the RP team should be formed now and trained all the way
through to the Olympic qualifier.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Olympic Committee’s executive
board meets today to rubber-stamp the BAP-SBP’s
application for membership, the last step needed to lift
the Fiba’s 18-month-long ban on the country.
The POC
executive board is expected to endorse the fledgling
hoops body to its general assembly of member national
sports associations (NSAs), which in turn holds a
special meeting on Friday that would formally welcome
BAP-SBP into the fold. |
