FIBA Asia Championship 2007 Schedule- The 2008 Olympics Qualifiers

BENHUR AKA BECYPHER
LIVE BLOGGING????

Although well short of its goal, this is a good re-start for Philippine basketball. If it was placed in any of the other brackets, it would have surely made the q-finals. Now, even if the Philippines topped the consolation round (if it can beat Syria and China), it would only be in 9th place, which it doesn’t deserve!

Here are some things to ponder for Philippine basketball (I’ve posted most of these before:

(1) The PBA should abandon being a copycat of the US NBA. Why copy a bunch of rotten, showboating brats, and a program on the decline? It should copy European basketball, and somehow send teams to Europe for practice games or international tournaments.

(2) The PBA should recruit, most aggressively, good tall Fil-foreigners not only from the US, but from all over the world, most importantly from Europe and Australia. Obviously, it’s heavy on guards, but lacks centers and forwards.

(3) The PBA should start thinking about recruiting European and South American (Brazil, Argentina, Puerto Rico) coaches.

(4) SBP should start a big national pool and send them to international competitions, starting with SE Asia. It should send young teams to international tournaments which have no bearing on bigger tournaments, so the youngsters would get exposure. Like China’s team in this tournament, who cares if they lose, since it doesn’t affect their participation in any other tournament? The main thing is that their national pool get international exposure.

If Philippine basketball continues on its present course, even SE Asia will eventually catch up, and even qualifying for FIBA-Asia would be a problem. The PBA would lose support from the fans, when the fans start realizing that the league is a farce when it’s not even in the top 5-8 in Asia.

A sad day indeed, but still a good start, if drastic measures are forthcoming. Philippine basketball should keep this in mind: good, tall teams will always beat good, small teams. The games against the big and tall, but “not-as-skilled,” Iranians should have proven this. Too many Filipinos are in denial of this fact, believing that Filipinos’ skills will offset their height disadvantage. This only works in SE Asia!

Great analysis, pinoyballer. One thing I would add, which you alluded to actually, is that, if we want to fair better in international play, basketball training needs to start early in the Philippines. In the US, great players are already recognized in grade school, then they are pegged for stardom by their high school years, etc. During their formative years, they would have been in AAUs or leagues while they were in grade school, most definitely while in high school, so they are used to competing. Then, as a country, we need to send a team in all age groups to international play, like the under 21s, the under 18s, and so on. I think things need to start early to really make a change in RP basketball. I think recruiting out-of-country RP ballers is still too short term a fix, it is not far remove from putting an all-star team together at the last moment. I think the country needs to invest in the sport and be structured and organized about it. Do it early so there is a steady stream of filipino players locally, then perhaps pepper it with out-of-country ballers at the end.
One thing on height, I never thought the Koreans were exceptionally tall, yet they compete well. I think because they have a team that has played together for so long, they are a good team. No star players, but a good team. Much like Argentina. Then, I think if we could light up the 3-pt shots, find shooters that just have ice water running through their veins, those who stroke the 3 like they were just breathing (JJ Reddick, Jason Kapono) then that would make us more competitive. Anyway, good luck to RP basketball, and congrats on a good outing, shows a lot of promise. Alot of room for improvement.