THE honeymoon phase is officially over for Tim Cone and this version of Gilas Pilipinas.
After more than a year of big wins – and losses that could even be deemed encouraging – the national team hit its first major roadblock after the not-so-pleasant results in the Doha friendlies turned into totally disappointing outcomes in its final two games of the FIBA Asia Qualifiers.
READ: Gilas gets Group B top seed snatched away by Tall Blacks
Gilas was shocked by lower-ranked Chinese Taipei in Taiwan, before getting blown out by New Zealand in Auckland days later. Safe to say, some of the fans online are beginning to change their tunes on Cone and his boys.
Now’s not the time to panic – or lose faith in these men instantaneously. But it also doesn’t mean they should be immune to criticism; it’s actually quite the contrary.
Criticizing one program or coach is totally different from asking for a revamp altogether – a take that’s surprisingly getting steam after those less-than-inspiring performances from the team.
So before we go to the criticizing part, here’s why my faith remains unshaken for this team.
Setbacks, as terrible as it may be, will always be part of it. Everyone who actually picked up a ball, a pair of gloves, a cue stick or whatever sport understands that it’s the entire dynamic of sports.
And this resonates more to teams like us. Teams like us who aren’t going to be the biggest, the most talented and the most athletic. We’re a good basketball team, yes, I firmly believe that, but we’re not a global powerhouse – and that means there are games that will usually end up like this.
This isn’t to give them an excuse, but this is the reality of basketball for the Philippines, and quite honestly, I think people who are calling for immediate changes are completely overreacting.
Fans are reacting like this right now, because Gilas actually did its job months ago as it qualified for the FIBA Asia Cup after beating New Zealand at home.
Under Cone, we’ve won the Asian Games for the first time this generation. We’ve scored monumental wins over the likes of higher-ranked squads like the aforementioned Tall Blacks, and Latvia, and hung tough against some really good teams like Brazil and Georgia.
And I’m not about to throw that away for a bad stretch of games, two of which are friendlies – and the other two non-bearing games.
What makes this knee-jerk reaction so laughable is we’re probably the only nation who are so forgiving when it comes to thieving politicians from dynastic families – but god forbid Gilas lose to a lower-ranked Chinese Taipei team and all hell breaks loose.
That said, there are definitely a lot of things that need improving.
For one, we’re really terrible at making our outside shots – something that we’ll certainly be needing come the Asia Cup this September.
You take away Brownlee’s eight trees against Chinese Taipei, and the country as a whole only shot 2-10 from downtown.
The Tall Blacks actually took away Brownlee’s outside game last Sunday, and the rest of the team shot 6-27 minus Brownlee’s two missed shots.
I know there’s a clamor for teams to minimize outside shooting, but we have to accept that this is how the game has evolved today – and it’s something that we need to focus on if we want to have a shot at winning the Asia Cup.
There are players that could help this team, and this totally leads up to my next point of criticism – that really small Gilas player pool and how we should start calling up more players in this team.
This is where I totally disagree with coach Cone. Yes, we understand the short preparation time. Yes, we understand that teaching 18 players on the team of the system could ultimately end up being detrimental to the team.
READ: Cone explains why expanding his Gilas pool won't happen
But that shallow pool is also the reason why we still can’t retire Japeth Aguilar in this team – God bless him for his service to the national team – even though he’s already paid his dues and can hang it up as one of the pillars of the national team.
And since this team has already been together for more than a year now, it’s fair to say that they’ve finally gotten a grasp of Cone’s system, so would adding three to four more players to the pool be really that hard to do for the team?
And these aren’t high schoolers. These are pro players who’ve been playing high-level, organized basketball since they were high schoolers.
Arvin Tolentino and Jordan Heading can certainly add three point shooting. Ray Parks fits the mold of Cone’s ‘big guards,’ and he’ll add another dimension to their defensive minded point guards like Scottie Thompson and Chris Newsome with his shot making and shooting.
His papers aren’t really clear yet, but would it hurt to add another big body in Quentin Millora-Brown to the team at least during training sessions – with the idea of if he’s truly eligible to play as a local, there will be little adjustments on his part anymore cause he’s already spent time with the team?
Those are just things for consideration, and while I understand that there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes that we don’t know, these are all things said with the intention of wanting nothing but the best for this national team.
Again, this is no time to panic. This is not the time for a major overhaul and overreactions. This is a time, though, for reflection and reassessment. This stretch might just very well be what Cone and the rest of Gilas Pilipinas need as they go deep into the preparation for the FIBA Asia Cup.
And they’re going to need all the fire and motivation they could get cause by then, how Gilas performs in that tournament might just very well determine if this is a program worth keeping.
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