CHICAGO - Because job security is often tied to performance, it made sense for the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) to replace Ronnie Magsanoc as Gilas Pilipinas 3x3 program director.
A failed podium finish for both men's and women's teams at the 2025 SEA Games in Thailand sealed Magsanoc's fate.
The change, however, doesn't necessarily mean Magsanoc's five-year regime was a failure.
READ Ryan Gregorio appointed as new SBP 3x3 program director
I say that not because I am a fan of Magsanoc as a former PBA player and currently a persuasively eloquent TV color commentator.
I say that out of the belief that our 3x3 program, especially the men's side that needs the most fixing, isn't at par with the elite programs in the FIBA universe.
AGAINST ALL ODDS.
There's lack of funding, a shallow coaching depth chart, and a leftover players' pool that excludes the premiere talents in the PBA.
Incoming director Ryan Gregorio is an intellectual who doesn't mind doing blue-collar heavy lifting as evidenced by his work with the overachieving Gilas Pilipinas women's national team.
But Gregorio, who declined an interview request, will need a lot of ink on his to-do list. And the patented dapper suits he wears as TV commentator in PBA games will have to endure wrinkle wars as he buckles down to work.
Priority number one is to find a moneyed corporate sponsor that will provide the kind of funding Chooks-to-Go used to wield when the chicken giant was king of the 3x3 hill in the Philippines.
International coach for 3x3?
Priority number two is to identify the most suitable players in a 3x3 setting and then convince the PBA and MPBL to provide more than just a token support as it pertains to manpower availability.
Priority number three is to hire an experienced international coach, preferably an outsider who is unburdened by ties to a university in particular and to the local basketball godfathers in general.
This could mean hiring a foreigner, which is unpopular but most sensical.
Just look at what Tab Baldwin has done at Ateneo. Tim Cone at Ginebra, Nenad Vucinic at Meralco and Norman Black with Gilas Pilipinas at the 2025 SEA Games.
If Gregorio, a good TV analyst like Magsanoc, can check all the boxes in the above suggested three-item list, he has a great chance of succeeding.
If not, coach RG a three-time PBA champion, will end up in the same lonely place where Magsanoc was last seen exiting from.
In the locker room of broken dreams.
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