SOMEONE very knowledgeable about Philippine basketball has suggested it might be time to dash off the Gilas Pilipinas’s obituary, even before it could shoot its first basket in the Fiba Asia Championship in China.
“Don’t mince words. Let’s call a spade a spade. I see very little hope for this team,” he said, shaking his head, “and we are not in the business of raising false hopes, of fostering illusions.”
To begin with, it is only a day before July turns into August, and still that much-awaited Gilas lineup—that elite team from the supposed cream of the pro league—has yet to show whether it would have June Mar Fajardo and Marc Pingris to lead Coach Tab Baldwin’s assault on the Olympic banner of Asia.
Worse, we haven’t told how many more big names would disappear from the candidates’ list. The saddest, most tragic part of this team’s destiny might be that the Gilas warriors whom Baldwin coveted all year might not be the same spear-carriers and shield-busters he had in mind to catapult Filipinos over to the top.
It is Asia’s qualifying tournament for next year’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics—one slot will be disputed by the Asian giants—and the Philippines seems to be treating it like an ordinary Asian interclub championship.
I fear that the planned elite team would not be so elite, after all. Not only that. This Gilas team, the Philippine quintet, is now playing catch-up, for it would have as little as seven weeks to train for so important a tournament as this one.
And seven weeks amounts to a suicide commando mission for this team—even if it has the talent, even if it has a foreign bench tactician to direct its course.
The latest word from the pros is that this Gilas team is in crisis. There is fear that is gnawing deep into the Philippines’s Olympic hopes every day.
It is the fear that a few of the best of our pro campaigners would be disallowed by their ball clubs from getting on that Baldwin express to China.
Another player, a veteran of the 2013 Gilas quintet and a former Jones Cup Most Valuable Player winner, is certain to be a no-show in the candidates’ pool.
He is Ginebra guard LA Tenorio, and the reason he cited distills the kind of new disturbing reality that has descended on the Gilas crew.
“’Pag sinabing national team, alam ko sakripisyo ‘yan. Matagal na rin naman akong naglalaro [sa national team],” Tenorio told dzSR Sports Radio in an interview.
“Pero kung tingin ko hindi na ako magiging effective, bakit ko naman ipipilit pa ang sarili ko. Magsa-sacrifice naman ang buong team, di ba?”
No less than Sonny Barrios, the main man of Manny V. Pangilinan who runs the affairs of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, confirmed the worst fears of Filipino fans only a few days ago.
The new reality he painted is dark, gloomy, and with a few more unexpected revelations, it could grow lamentably gloomier still.
What Barrios could not explain, he surrendered to a mood of profound fatalism, telling everyone off that Badlwin “has to deal with the cards he’s dealt with.”
The variation to this that he offered was the glass half-filled or half-empty.
It’s a matter of point of view, he said, trying to sell his idea to sports writers, that rather than lamenting the half where nothing exists, it would be best to appreciate the portion of the glass that carries something—part hope and part fear.
“I live by this credo!” he blurted out. “Tinatrabaho ’yun. Konting pasensya na lang at makakabuo rin ng pool ’yan somehow,” he added.
The Gilas team should have shown up for its first practice last Wednesday, but it was called off, simply because there were no players yet to answer to Coach Baldwin’s roll call.
Few ball clubs in the pro leagues, it is plain to see, are not fired up anymore by the Olympic conquest more than their predecessors in the seventies and eighties, when Philippine basketball had fallen to rock bottom.
They are not smitten anymore by the romance of that search for something we used to have—being in that big arena of Olympic basketball, during the most glorious fortnight of the sport.
Where has nationalism gone? Where has pride in the flag gone? That surge of inexplicable emotion whenever the flag is put on display in international events is a sight to behold.
It was a sight to behold in 2013, during the Fiba Asia championship, when Gilas floored South Korea in an all-important matchup, and then put up a gallant but losing effort to dominant Iran, the eventual champion.
Basketball in the pros, it seems to us, has been won over by something so hollow. It is called entertainment, period. And entertainment by its nature is ultimately a commercial venture.
We are stocked with our gladiators in the Mall of Asia Arena or the Smart-Araneta Coliseum that exist purely for the idea of sending the crowd into a frenzy of excitement.
They are vastly talented. They have the heart and courage. They are well motivated.
But a sense of sacrifice? It may be missing. When LA Tenorio stepped aside, it marked the time for others to step up. But will they?
With the Fiba Asia series set to begin on September 3, we may indeed follow our experts’ advise.
The team will go with our most fervent hope, even if the reality paints a picture that discourages, rather than nurtures, it.
1 comment
Ray, your superb hurting realistic analysis on Gilas’ rigor mortis state is really heart-breaking and nerve-wracking! Let’s face it! Yes, it’s a reality in-the-making as a consequence of uncompassionate shinenigans & renegades – business tyrants.. There seems to be a sense of emergency. There seems to be a deliberate conspiracy among some ball club owners to hold their premium players from joining. Why? Was there an unfairness or unequal exposures as in the media mileage? Was there a monopoly of credits and recognitions? Is Coach Baldwin acceptable as Gilas coach? The “rush” in forming a ragtag team without some premium players — may eventually produce a team that maybe even be easily whipped by Indons or even Thais. Ray, please enlighten us….