VINCENT “CHOT” REYES will be on his third tour of duty as head coach of the men’s national basketball team—Gilas PIlipinas—but despite having “been there and done that” and with a World Cup reputation to boot, he has three apprehensions, three of them.
First, Reyes is apprehensive about the new format for the International Basketball Federation (Fiba) World Cup qualifiers that would gather 32 teams—no longer 24—this time. Second, the search of one or two naturalized players entails a burden. And third, which appeared to be the most onerous, is getting a 24-member pool together without prejudice to their mother clubs and the schedule of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA).
“With the new world championship qualifying format, the demands of the national team is going to be very tough. So I think having only one team with 12 players is going to be very difficult,” Reyes told a press conference formally announcing his appointment on Wednesday. “It’s physically toxic to the players and I think it’s going to be unfair to their mother teams in PBA, so a 24-man pool gives us a lot of flexibility.”
There will be six windows for the qualifiers, which begin in September 2017 and end in February of 2019.
Reyes, who steered Gilas to a silver medal behind Iran in the 2013 Fiba Asia Championships that saw the country’s return to the Fiba World Cup in Spain in 2014, said the will be bannered by PBA players and the 12 Gilas cadets the pro league and Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas announced earlier.
American Andray Blatche would no longer fit and firm for Gilas, giving urgency to the determination of at least two naturalized players—with European players in the radar this time.
“We’re looking at the possibility of getting a European, a seven-footer with a three-point shot. We need to get a naturalized player who can play with June Mar [Fajardo],” Reyes said. “It’s not easy to find a European or American, who is willing to be developed and naturalized.”