All Roads Lead to Manila – Gilas Pilipinas Report 7: Falling Behind Early

I have missed two straight Gilas practices because of personal circumstances. Suffice to say that, lately, I haven’t had the luxury of time to pursue things other than what many might term “family stuff.”

Admittedly, in terms of regularly detailing the developments of the national team, I have fallen behind quite early.

It seems, however, that our team’s preparations have fallen behind as well.

Yi Jianlian and the rest of Asia have started prepping for
the 2013 FIBA Asia Men's tourney. We haven't.
(image from Sports.Sohu.com)

No, this is far from a rant about the way the practices have been conducted or about the mindset of the program.

It is, more so, a rant about the prevalent culture of Philippine basketball that has put unfair constraints on how coach Chot and his staff can conduct the practices of Gilas Pilipinas.

What follows is nothing really new. What follows is something we already know, only it is seen with, hopefully, a fresher perspective.

The bitter truth is this, and here’s me NOT pulling any punches, the PBA schedule, heck the entire PBA format, is stunting the development of the Gilas program. The way we do things, which is not very different from the way we have done things ever since the PBA was instituted, has always hindered the growth of the past national teams, and, sadly, continues to do so with our current one.

Yes, you’ve heard this before, but let me put things in a different perspective. Instead of looking solely at how little time Gilas has to train at full strength and with full intensity, let’s look at what our Asian rivals are already doing.

First, let’s look at two-time FIBA Asia Men’s Champions and defending 2012 FIBA Asia Cup Champion Iran. As early as mid-March, their pro league already ended. Petrochimi Bandar Imam beat defending champ and perennial title favorite Mahram Tehran in five games to emerge victorious in the Finals of the Iranian Superleague. Led by Hamed Sohrabnejad and Hamed Afagh, Petro upended the deep Mahram team, which was led by international scoring dynamo Samad Nikkhah Bahrami.

Hamed Afagh led Petrochimi to its maiden
Iranian Super League title.
(image from FIBAAsia.net)

Both Hameds, along with Bahrami, are expected to attend Team Iran’s national team practices. Other familiar names who are expected to compete for the final 12 spots are veterans Asghar Kardoust, Mahdi Kamrani, Oshin Sahakian, Javad Davari, Aren Davoudi, Saeid Davarpanah, and Rouzbeh Arghavan. What’s really interesting for Iran is the inclusion of A TON of youngsters (I’m talking about guys who are in their late teens or barely into their 20s) in their national pool. Get used to reading about guys like 17-year old sniper Behnam Yakhchali, high-flying 21-year old Mohammad Jamshidi, and 18-year old big man Saleh Foroutan. Of course, Phoenix Sun Hamed Haddadi and Oregon Duck Arsalan Kazemi are also expected to join.

Out in East Asia, the defending FIBA Asia champions have already begun preparations. Team China has started calling its national pool members to practice and to fight for the final 12 roster spots.

Just last week, former NBAer Yi Jianlian led his Guangdong Southern Tigers to a 4-0 sweep of the overachieving Shandong Flaming Bulls in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) Finals. Yi, as expected, was a monster. He shot 7-of-13 from the field on his way to a game-high 24 points to go along with 13 rebounds in Game 4. National team mainstays Wang Shipeng and Zhu Fangyu also did well, chipping in 16 points each. Two other Guangdong players who are NT hopefuls, Zhou Peng and Chen Jianghua, scored 6 points each. On the other end of the floor, the Flaming Bulls were led not really by the locals but by their imports. American Pooh Jeter led the offense with 16 markers while Jordanian superstar Zaid Abbas, who said he will NOT play for Jordan in this year’s FIBA Asia tourney, had 12 points and 8 rebounds in the loss. Jackson Vroman, a naturalized Lebanese and former PBA import, also competed for Shandong with 6 points and 7 boards.

Aside from Yi and his aforementioned Guangdong teammates, other guys expected to fight for positions in Team Big Red are big men Zhang Zhaoxu, Su Wei, Ding Jinhui, and youngster Wang Zhelin, whom many CBA observers are tagging as the heir apparent to Wang Zhizhi. The other names included in the initial NT pool are regulars Yi Li, Sun Yue, Zhang Bo, Yu Shulong, and Inner Mongolian Mugedar Xirelijiang. CBA super scorer Zhang Nan also has a fair chance as well as young guns Zhao Tailong, Duan Jiangpeng, and Guo Ailun (a.k.a. the Kiefer Ravena of China).

It’s worth noting that aside from Wang Zhizhi, veteran playmaker Liu Wei has also reportedly announced his retirement from international play. For the record, I’m picking either Chen Jianghua or Guo Ailun to take Liu’s place in the starting five.

Phew. Got those names? Yeah, trust me, it’s easier writing them than pronouncing them.

Why talk about these teams at all? Simple, really. You see, Iran and China are the two strongest teams in Asia. Every FIBA Asia Men’s title won after 1997 has gone to either country. China won it from 1999 to 2005. Iran snared it in 2007 and 2009 before China reclaimed it in 2011.

And BOTH teams have already started preparing full blast.

Okay, how about the other strong Asian teams like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, and Kazakhstan? Let’s see.

Like Iran and China, Qatar is done with its season. They’re off getting ready as well.

Taiwan is in the middle of the Taiwanese Super Basketball League (SBL) Finals with Pure Youth leading the Dacin Tigers, 2-0.

South Korea’s KBL, Japan’s JBL, Jordan’s Premier League, and Kazakhstan’s Division 1 are all starting or already in the middle of their respective Final Four/Semifinals.

Chen Shih-Shieh of Pure Youth is one of the spitfire
guards in the Taiwanese NT.
(image from Taipei Times)

Anyang KGC's Kim Tae-Sul is a prime
prospect to start at PG for the Koreans.
(image from Yonhap News Agency)

Only Lebanon’s FLB is still in its elimination round, but since its format is not as stretched as the PBA’s, it will still end earlier than the Commish Cup.

How about our team?

Our team, our coaches, and our players all want to turn up the intensity and maximize training time, but they cannot.

They cannot because we are still in the middle of our season’s second conference.

The Gilas practices I’ve attended have mostly been about just running the offensive sets and shooting drills. No scrimmages yet. Definitely no exhibition games. Nothing hardcore.

But, then again, how can they?

How can they give 110% when they had a PBA game the night or the weekend before practice? How can they give 110% when they got injured just recently? How can they give 110% when their mother clubs advise them to just observe the practices in order to preserve the mother club’s chances in the current conference?

It’s been generally the same thing for the past two decades or so.

Same thing over and over, and we expect different (better) results.

There’s a word for that.

And it’s not a pretty word.

Yes, nothing can be done right now to change it all up. We can’t put a stop to the conference midstream. We can’t tell the clubs to release their Gilas players outright.

What do we do instead?

We end our conference in late May and stage an All-Star Game pitting the Gilas boys with the players who were not picked to be in Gilas. Oh that should be a doozy indeed. Oh why not just put them against an All-Import team like what we did to the 1998 Centennial squad?

I hate to say it (I really do), and this is probably way too late in the process already, but shouldn’t we have been able to make braver, bigger changes in order to give our team a braver, bigger chance?

Shouldn’t we have made the choices that would enable our team to actually catch up and not simply “play catch-up?”

I fear that coach Chot, his staff, the players, and the entire Gilas program are just being fattened up for the slaughter (no pun intended, Greg), and, worst of all, the slaughter will happen right here in Manila.

It’s clear, even this early, that we’ve fallen behind.

Way behind.

#parasabayan