There must be a quid pro quo for the PBA’s support for Gilas Pilipinas

It seems only fair that there must be a quid pro quo for the commendable support of the PBA Board of Governors for the Gilas Pilipinas national basketball team that will compete in the World Cup in Spain which begins on August 30 and ends on September 14.

The PBA board and Commissioner Chito Salud responded positively to the requests of head coach Chot Reyes by agreeing to cut short the second and third conferences to enable the national team to begin full-scale practices by July 23 at the latest rather than the previous date in August which would have given the squad probably two weeks of working out together before leaving for Spain.

This effectively means Gilas Pilipinas will have two months of practice as a team which is about the same time defending champions, the mighty United States will begin their own preparation to hold off all challengers to the trophy they won in Turkey in 2010.

It is important to appreciate the PBA's sacrifice if we could call it such because the reason for the existence of the ten teams is the media exposure, particularly on television, which justifies the huge budgets spent by the companies to promote their brand names carried by the teams.

ALSO READ: PBA adjusts schedule for Gilas Pilipinas

Beyond that the PBA also opened the doors to the inclusion of more than one player which was the unwritten policy for the last FIBA Asia Championships which necessitated the depletion of the Talk N’ Text squad to fill in the roster since it is the team of Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas president Manny Pangilinan whose passionate quest is to see the Philippines do comparatively well among the elite nations in world basketball after the successful eleven memorable days in August which earned us a berth in the World Cup after 40 long years.

While Reyes hasn’t mentioned which players he’d like to add to the pool that bannered the FIBA Asia Championship bid, his past statements have indicated who he may ask for.

From the get-go Reyes didn’t hide his desire to have Petron Blaze swingman Marcio Lassiter in the team and since he can now pick Lassiter who is an excellent shooter and an asset defensively, he most likely will.

Jared Dillinger whose quickness, defensive intensity, and ability to drive to the basket and occasionally bury an outside shot appeared to be a cinch for the FIBA Asia squad until a nasty injury suffered in a traffic accident took him out of the picture, automatically.

Seven foot Greg Slaughter was also in the pool but didn’t impress too much. However, since being drafted as the No.1 pick by crowd favorites Ginebra San Miguel, Slaughter has shown vast improvement and has turned into a fearsome twosome with the high-flying Japeth Aguilar, and is likely to also be recalled to the pool.

ALSO READ: Bills filed to naturalize McGee and Blatche

Reyes will be in Spain’s Palau de la Musica on February 3 to 4 in Manila – for the Official Draw which will be telecast “live” in the basketball crazy Philippines over Solar Sports and the Basketball TV on Tuesday from 2:00 to 3:00 a.m.

The draw will give coach Reyes and millions of Filipinos to find out which countries we will face in the preliminary round in which the 24 teams,  including the four wild card national squads that will be made known on February 1,  will be divided into four groups with games to be played in the cities of Bilbao, Granada, Gran Canaria, and Seville before the action moves to Barcelona and Madrid for the Final Round.

The 20 teams that have qualified so far are Spain as hosts, USA as Olympic champions, France, Lithuania, Croatia, Slovenia, Ukraine, and Serbia from Europe, Australia and New Zealand from the Oceania Group, Angola, Egypt, and Senegal from Africa, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic from the Americas and Iran, the Philippines, and South Korea from Asia.

The group into which the Philippines is drawn may well have an impact on the players Reyes will invite from the PBA to join the team which is expected to have 16 pro league players in addition to naturalized American Marcus Douthit who has helped in the national cause and two current NBA players whose naturalization has been sought in two bills filed by Deputy Speaker Robbie Puno who was responsible for filing the House Bill that resulted in Douthit being granted Filipino citizenship.

The two NBA players are JaVale McGee who is currently playing for the Denver Nuggets, while Andray Blatche sees action for the Brooklyn Nets in the NBA. The 7-foot McGee played in the Ultimate All-Star Weekend at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in 2011 and impressed Filipino fans with his talent. He currently averages 7 points and 3.4 rebounds a game but he has been in the injured list for so long. Blatche on the other hand is averaging 12.6 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 1.5 assists.

Unfortunately, two days ago McGee’s constantly painful shin forced tea doctors to consider surgery during the All Star Weekend which Reyes said “may not make him available by July” when practices begin in earnest.

Reyes told Yahoo Philippines the injury concerns over McGee prompted a decision to have Blatche as a backup who “actually has better numbers than McGee” at present.

This isn’t the first time a bill has been filed for McGee’s naturalization. In May 2012, Puno filed a similar bill in the previous Congress with McGee stating he “would love to represent the Philippines if given the chance.” Puno who got the wholehearted support of his colleagues in the naturalization of Marcus Douthit urged Congress to approve  legislation to strengthen the Philippine team with two more naturalized players, telling his colleagues “I stand here today, to urge Congress to naturalize at the minimum two players identified by the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas for the national team that would serve as back up players to one another in case any one of them gets injured. Thus, the Philippine national team avoids the inconvenience of jeopardizing the whole program in the event of an injury.”

The positive atmosphere during Reyes’ presentation to the board augurs well for the country’s  World Cup journey. The coach told us the meeting “went pretty well” while PBA chairman Mon Segismundo told Yahoo Philippines “there was a very collaborative atmosphere and it was a very positive meeting.”

It does seem then that TV 5 needs to and will possibly strive to accommodate the desire reflected persistently in social media sites for both PBA games to be telecast live on the much bigger television network and not with the first game telecast on a delayed basis which goes well past midnight.

There were a couple of governors who told us, its not only the teams and the PBA that will benefit from airing both games live on TV 5 but the network itself where higher ratings should translate into better sales and increased revenues.

Only time will tell whether indeed TV 5 will bite the bullet and sacrifice its fascination with entertainment shows that continue to fight a somewhat hopeless battle against the giants in the business in ABS-CBN and GMA 7.

Or whether a buyout of GMA 7 will eventually materialize so TV 5 can return to being a sports, news, and public affairs network which in the minds of many is a far more viable proposition.