AMIDST the talks of Kai Sotto taking his talents overseas, a respected foreign coach believes that it's better for the 7-foot-1 center to stay in the Philippines.
Tab Baldwin thinks that Ateneo can provide a program at par with the clubs chasing the young prodigy and would rather have him continue his development in the country.
"I want Kai to stay," he said. "I want him to stay in the Philippines. I want us to create a program that he and his family can realize that everything that he needs in terms of his development, he can get here. And I think that will be a great exercise for us to go through is to understand how we can devote ourselves to special players for their careers and they can get that here."
Reports last week bared that Sotto has drawn interest from Spanish top flight clubs like Real Madrid and US NCAA Division I schools Gonzaga University and University of Texas, though his father Ervin has declared that Kai will remain in the Philippines as of the moment.
For Baldwin, an underrated aspect of talents trying their luck overseas will be the familiarity -- with him at the forefront of seeing a handful of talents waste their potential just because they are homesick.
"I think one thing we know is Kai is through and through a Filipino. He's gonna be happiest at home, he's gonna be among friends and seemingly, he wants to put the effort and energy into this," the Kiwi-American mentor said, speaking from experience.
"I've spent half of my life outside United States and I can tell you that when you leave your home, when you leave your country, it isn't always a bed of roses. Sometimes you miss home a lot. Sometimes, whatever your goals and dreams are seem to become secondary to the fact that you just want to be home. You just want to be with the ones that love you and the ones you love."
However, Baldwin knows that the current setting isn't viable for a "special talent" like Sotto and something needs to be done to help him continue honing his basketball skills.
"Look, there's gonna be resources required for this. The European teams, if they get him, are gonna put huge resources in him. We shouldn't think that we can (keep him here) just because we're friends or because he's Filipino," he said.
"It will take resources and part of those resources should be dedicated to bringing foreign expertise to work with him, and part of the year, when he has breaks from school ideally, he can spend some of that time with European teams and get the experience there. I don't think we should be restricting ourselves in what we look at in terms of what's best for his development. If we can do that, he can stay here and we can provide that for him, provide the development program he needs without feeling (homesick)."
"I'd love to be a part of that for him, but the important thing is we make the effort to do that."
Baldwin, though, urges the public not to put too much pressure on a talent like Sotto, knowing that at age 16, it's still too early to put burden on him as the touted future of Philippine basketball.
"I think he has a lot of potential. But it's really foolish to label young players anything," he said. "I don't think it's good for Kai when people talk him that way. Big men have long life spans in basketball and some of their best years are in their 30s. We're still 15 years away from that. I think if we're expecting a lot from him, that's gonna be foolish and I hope we don't."
"Unfortunately in the Philippines, we are tied to this hero mentality and it's not healthy. I don't think it's healthy for the people who express that either, as well as the targets of it. There's a lot of things that if they're gonna change is gonna take a long time, and some things simply aren't gonna change."
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