There have been two trains of thought regarding the Gilas Pilipinas team currently competing in the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers.
On the one hand, having a pure-Cadets team is necessary since it will help prepare them for the 2023 FIBA World Cup. The Philippines is already assured of a spot in the global meet and does not need to place high in the Asia Cup since it is one of the three hosts.
On the other end, Gilas still needs PBA players to help the young Cadets build chemistry with their older and more experienced brothers.
Interim Gilas head coach Jong Uichico and program director Tab Baldwin are both in unison in saying that having pros is a must come the February window.
“Lahat sila very impressive, but you also have two ways of thinking pagdating sa players — ‘yung ready today and maybe ready tomorrow. So kailangan balansehin mo ‘yun eh. May mga ready today — Juan GDL, Dwight Ramos, and Matt Nieto. Marami na rin ‘yung ready today,” Uichico told 2OT presented by SMART Sports.
“But you also have to consider who can be ready tomorrow. For example — examples lang ito ha — Justine Baltazar, Kmark Cariño, maybe Isaac Go just because of size, and si Calvin Oftana just because they have size, length. And maybe they might be ready for tomorrow,” he continued.
“You have to balance all these things out there.”
The Pool A-leading Gilas team has some tough outings come February.
The Philippines might play South Korea twice — a country it has not beaten in both FIBA-sanctioned competitions and the Asian Games since 2013. Then there’s the re-tooled Indonesian team, which has Rajko Toroman as head coach and Lester Prosper and Brandon Jawato as its marquee players.
One good thing, though, is the working relationship between the SBP and the PBA.
The PBA even set an April start date for its 46th season so it could accommodate the February window.
“We are planning, and obviously we have to talk to all of our partners that are involved in the basketball landscape. My good friends at the PBA, SBP, our bosses, and all of the college teams too. We don’t know when the college programs will be by the start of January, so there’s a lot has to be done,” wondered Baldwin during Coaches Unfiltered, also presented by SMART Sports.
“But I think we’ve already seen boss Al [Panlilio]’s comments in the media that we probably are looking at bringing PBA players back into the mix. Those were his comments and I support that. But again, we have to I think there was a PBA board meeting [last Thursday], so they may have discussed that,” he said.
“We may have some news going forward about that, but I think with the PBA planning a later start date in 2021, there may not be restrictions on what we could do with PBA players. But until the bosses all sit down and discuss all of that, we don’t know.
“But certainly we’re hoping to have access to the same pool of players; and if we can extend that to other players, including a possibility of Ange Kouame getting his naturalization. We still don’t know if that would be completed by then, but that would be great as well. If all that could happen, I think we can do some different things moving forward in the February window.”
Besides, these games involve national pride at the end of the day.
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