The Smart Gilas-Pilipinas national basketball team won their first match in a lop sided victory over the Sangmu Phoenix Korean Team in the ongoing FIBA-Asia Champions Cup.
Maybe this basketball crazy republic would celebrate this opening win in Jakarta and bring hope to our dream of winning an asianwide FIBA backed tournament.
I would not rejoice prematurely, the real test would be against the defending champion Iranian Team and besides they won against a Korean team without an import.
Does this seudo-RP Team have a chance to bag the title? I don't think so. Why? Because we're not sending our best cagers. we're not even sending our second best team or even our third best.
Whether we like it or else, the best team that we have is the real RP team coach by Yeng Guiao. Why then we're not sending Yeng's boys instead? I DON'T KNOW! Ask Noli Eala about it.
Maybe, the SBP has a plan. What plan? That this Smart Gilas - Pilipinas Team would play together for two years without turning pro and join international competition whole year round to get the feel of the competition.
And then what? And then, they will certainly go home defeated in every league that they intend to join. And by losing they will learn valuable lessons.
What lessons? That no matter what philosophy Toroman brings, this RP team will be short (literally) in international competitions. What will happen next?
Off course by 2011, all politicians masking as sports leaders would appear in TV networks and print medias, calling patriotic basketball cagers (who by the way all resides in the PBA) to done the national colors replacing the patsies (who?) , you guest it right, the Smart - alang Gilas Basketball Team.
Then its too late. Sports (by sports in the Philippines, it means basketball and boxing) leaders would blame each other and will come up at a plan that finally, we will only send the best PBA players in International competition. Hooray! And this process will go on and on and on and on. Why should we wait for 2011 for this realization? Why not start it now?
Is there any hope in our sorry case? Yes, it's all in the hands of Rajko Toroman. Maybe Toroman (would turn out to be the Freddie Roach of our hoop dreams) could infuse common sense in our Basketball program. By hiring an ex Laker CJ Giles in the team, we will not start the tourney in a disadvantage. That's a good start, the FIBA Asia Cup allows reinforcement so it isn't against the rule.
Maybe he can influence the RP team to try the route of naturalization. In international competition, we are allowed to acquire 2 naturalized players so why not play this to our advantage. We done it before and the likes of Allan Caidic and Samboy Lim shines playing with Moore and Engeland.
Off course we should always send our best cagers to any international competition from now on. The mighty United States of America is doing it with Le Bron, Kobe and Dwayne leading their NBA superstars through it, why don't we hah.
The best formula for the RP team right now is to acquire two seven footer as naturalized players plus Yeng's PBA backed RP Team. Maybe its not the winning formula but it is the best we could offer right now.
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