The selection of the members of the Philippine Men’s Basketball Team would depend on whether the decision makers have long or short team vision in their strategic map for Philippine basketball.
If the vision is only for this season, select the already cooked, carinderia style.
With only two (2) months of training, a coach would definitely opt for those who are ready to cook.
Coupled with the PBA’s preferred formula of giving up only one player per team, the more that the coach would lose the best players that he needs.
So instead of getting Arwind Santos and Junmar Fajardo selected from Petron, only Arwind would make it. Or between Jason Castro and Ranidel de Ocampo, Talk and Text would only lose De Ocampo.
If the vision is however long term, say one cycle beyond the 2014 Asian or 2016 Olympic Games, I would go for a team which will be formidable in at least four (4) years.
Training continuously whenever the PBA schedule would allow, participate in as many international competitions, and evaluate the team for continuous improvement, attainment of potential, and consistency of commitment.
With such a long term vision, then the team should have reserve slots for Junmar Fajardo, Greg Slaughter, Calvin Abueva, Jason Castro and Mark Barroca.
In the intermediate slots should have the likes of Beau Belga, Paul Lee, Jared Sallinger, JV Casio, Marc Baracael and Jervy Cruz. (Rabah Al-Hussaini woud be in this group, once he conquers his personal demons. Jeffrey Chan too, with a little more heft and defense)
Then the immediate present to give the team experience and competitiveness, should have Arwind Santos, Jimmy Alapag, Ranidel de Ocampo, James Yap and Marcus Douthit.
Put in Sonny Thoss, Gabe Norwood, Ryan Reyes and LA Tenorio, that should complete the make-up of the Philippine team where the 12 slots for every tournament would be assessed on current play and health.
Personally,I would go for the long term vision team.
The short vision team would still not be able to do it.
It will however be setting very high expectations, and if it fails, it will result in too much finger pointing, discouragement and going back to the perennial excuse that basketball is a game of height and heft and definitely not for Filipinos.
But the Smart Gilas Team of Rakjo Toroman was able to prove that a smaller team, with the right system, can indeed play, even with the big boys.
No matter what happens, the present cooperation among the Philippine basketball gods should be a non-issue, and should even be improved.
Now that all things are in place, only good things can be expected from Philippine basketball in the near and distant future.
See you in the 2018 Asian Games and FIBA World’s and the 2020 Olympics.