GILAS Pilipinas Head Coach Tab Baldwin wants to do it the traditional way—select 25 Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) players and work his way from there until he and his staff comes up with the final 12.
“From what I’ve been seeing, from the names I’ve got down now, it’s looking like around 25 [players]. It’s something like that,” Baldwin said in his first at the Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum appearance on Tuesday at Shakey’s Malate.
“But I’d say that the only player right now who cannot be excluded given the demographic of the sport of basketball is June Mar Fajardo,” he added, referring to the 6-foot-11 San Miguel Beer center who was part of Gilas Pilipinas II under Chot Reyes.
Out of the 25, the list would be trimmed to 16 from which the final 12 bound for the Olympic qualifier are going to be chosen.
“Having a group of around 16 would be ideal,” the Gilas coach added. “I would say within four or five days we’ll be able to make the first cut down to 16, and then we won’t cut down that 16 to the last 12 until we have to, until the last day, [whatever] the deadline is.”
The 56-year-old American-New Zealander, however, kept the identities of the other players to himself but stressed all of them possess the ability to adopt to the chemistry to work together—plus talent, efficiency and competitiveness.
“I intend to select the best team, not necessarily the best players,” he stressed in the session presented by San Miguel Corp., Accel, Shakey’s and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.
Butch Antonio, Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) deputy executive director for international affairs, said a concrete program would be drawn once Baldwin comes up with the final players.
“Until we have identified who these players are and put this team together, then that’s the only time we can only make plans and how we can make schedules from the time the PBA season ends and to the time the Fiba Asia begins,” he said.
Baldwin has been regularly attending games in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup in an attempt to familiarize himself more with the players he would be inviting to the national team.
Baldwin has also started conducting tryouts for the Sinag Pilipinas team that will see action in the Southeast Asian Basketball Association (Seaba) Championship and the Southeast Asian Games in Singapore this June.
The four-day tryouts began on Monday night at the PhilSports Arena. It drew top players from both the PBA D-League and the collegiate leagues.
Like Gilas Pilipinas, 25 amateur players were also invited by the SBP for the tryouts which would later be pruned down to 16 by this weekend. The final 12 will compete in the Seaba from April 27 to May 1 and the SEA Games from June 6 to 15.
The Seaba serves as the qualifier to the Fiba-Asia Men’s Championship set in Wuhan, China, in August.
Image credits: Alysa salen