Doomed to failure

Reviewing Gilas’ performance in men’s 5x5 basketball at the recent Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, coach Tim Cone mentioned that some of the country’s best players couldn’t join because they weren’t released by their teams in Japan and Korea. He referred to Dwight Ramos, AJ Edu, Quentin Millora-Brown, Kai Sotto, Mike Phillips, Carl Tamayo and Kevin Quiambao. Surely, if they had played in Nagoya, Gilas wouldn’t have finished out of the quarterfinals in ninth place.

Another reason was the absence of naturalized players. At the 2022 Asian Games, Gilas was powered by Justin Brownlee and Ange Kouame. More than anybody, JB was the man of the hour for Gilas, averaging a tournament-high 22.1 points, 7.1 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.9 steals in seven outings. Kouame, for his part, hit at a 7.4 clip and grabbed 6.1 rebounds a contest while averaging 1.4 blocked shots. In Nagoya, neither Brownlee nor Kouame was available. Brownlee called in sick while Kouame was under contract to play in France. Bennie Boatwright’s naturalization had not been cleared at that time. Another naturalized player Malick Diouf wasn’t on the long list of Gilas candidates submitted to the Asian Games organizers.

Less than a month before the 2022 Asian Games (actually staged in 2023), the Philippines finished No. 24 of 32 teams at the FIBA World Cup. That was higher than No. 29 China, No. 31 Iran and No. 32 Jordan. Four players on the squad saw action at the 2022 Asian Games – Scottie Thompson, JuneMar Fajardo, CJ Perez and Japeth Aguilar. Brownlee wasn’t on the lineup to give way to Jordan Clarkson as FIBA requires only one naturalized player. So Brownlee was fresh for the Asian Games.

This year, Gilas played in the fourth FIBA World Cup Asia qualifying window against Jordan and Iran less than two weeks before the start of the Nagoya hostilities. Only Justine Baltazar and Justin Arana were on the Asian Games cast from the FIBA window. No Perez, no JMF, no Scottie, no Juan Gomez de Liaño, no Chris Newsome, no Troy Rosario who all played in the FIBA window. And no overseas players. RJ Abarrientos was a reserve for the window and went to Nagoya.

In the 2022 Asian Games, overseas players also didn’t suit up but Gilas hit paydirt. It was the same situation in Nagoya yet Gilas could only play three games, losing to China in a bitter farewell by 44. A defeat by 38 would’ve sent Gilas to the quarterfinals.

Before traveling to Nagoya, Gilas played two tuneups in Korea, losing both by an average of over 20 points. It was a portent of things to come. Gilas’ roster had seven first-timers representing the country at the senior level – Adrian Nocum, Brandon Bates, Sedrick Barefield, Zavier Lucero, Don Trollano, Arana and Jerrick Ahanmisi. They were led to the lion’s den. Gilas lacked size and its speed couldn’t compensate.

Bahrain was Gilas’ first opponent and the team was bannered by four naturalized imports, including six-year NBA vet JaKarr Sampson. Gilas lost by four but it was 5-10 local Mustafa Rashed who shone brightly with 20 points, punctuated by four triples. Then came a blowout win over Kazakhstan and finally, the embarrassing loss to China to formalize the Philippines’ dethronement.

Many questions were left unanswered after the debacle. Where were Perez, JMF, Newsome, Scottie and JGDL? Some were injured and others, recovering from fatigue. What about Sotto? At that time, he still hadn’t signed a contract in the B-League. With no overseas, top PBA and naturalized players, Gilas was doomed to failure. There were shortcomings in planning for Nagoya, oversights, unfounded presumptions and risky gambles. But Gilas couldn’t be faulted for lack of effort. Cone’s charges gave it their all under challenging conditions. Let’s hope lessons are learned from this painful experience that it may never happen again.