AS with other Philippine squads sent to international duty, time was the major issue for Chot Reyes and Gilas Pilipinas ahead of the 2014 Basketball World Cup.
"The most important thing we could have gotten that we never got was time," he told Coaches Unfiltered.
"You can imagine if you had given that team more time to know each other and to play together, maybe we could have done more damage."
Reyes, who steered Gilas to a silver medal finish in the 2013 Fiba Asia Championship which allowed the Philippines to qualify for the 2014 Fiba World Cup in Spain, believed that more time together would have benefitted the squad as a whole.
Case in point: the Philippines only had naturalized Andray Blatche for a month before the global hoops conclave.
"We met Andray Blatche in Miami on July 26. That's met, not practice. The players were actually like, 'Hi Andray, I'm Marc Pingris.' 'Hi, I'm June Mar.' And then we played our first game in late August na," reflected Reyes.
Blatche was pressed for time to build chemistry with his new team as he sought to fill the role previously held by Marcus Douthit for Gilas.
To Reyes, had the former NBA player accustomed himself more to the grind, the Philippines would have fared better in the World Cup.
"I thought if we had more time, with the way we played in the worlds, it would have been better," he said.
The Philippines earned the world's adulation with its grit in 2014, giving top-tier nations like Argentina, Greece, Croatia and Puerto Rico a run for their money in Group B of the preliminary rounds.
Gilas did score an 81-79 win over Senegal to finish its campaign with a 1-4 card, the country's first win in the tilt in 40 years.
Reyes understood the challenges the national team faced even from the start, noting, "I know the realities that we worked with, the schedule of the players, the PBA schedule: those are all given."
"But if you’re asking me if there’s one thing na sana could have been different, that’s that one thing, to have more time."
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