[Editor's note: We asked the country's top coaches on what they believe is the prototype of the first homegrown PBA player to make it to the NBA. Someone as tall as Kai Sotto? Or perhaps a point guard with Johnny Abarrientos' skills? Or an athletic winger like Kobe Paras? This is the third of a series]
THERE's no doubt in Yeng Guiao's mind that Kai Sotto is the Philippines' best shot ever at putting a homegrown player in the NBA.
There's just a bit of a problem.
"Kai is an outlier," said the veteran NLEX coach, driving home the point that a 7-foot-3 teenager blessed with Sotto's innate grace and skills comes once in a blue moon for a country like the Philippines.
So while Filipino hoops fans eagerly follow Sotto's pursuit of his NBA dream, Guiao weighed other possibilities and came to the conclusion that the Philippines' next best shot after Kai are still players of mixed blood, like Jordan Clarkson.
"Look at Japan," the former Gilas Pilipinas coach said, "it put players in the NBA before, but it took someone like Rui Hachimura to establish Japan's footing in the league."
Hachimura was born in Japan and got his start there before going to college at Gonzaga and later becoming the first Asian-American to be picked in the first round of the NBA draft.
In the local front, Guiao sees hope in players of mixed blood but born and raised in the Philippines, but blessed with the skills of a Stanley Pringle or a Gabe Norwood.
"They fit the requirements in terms of athleticism, [maybe] because of their genetic makeup," said Guiao. "Someone like Pringle or Gabe maybe."
As for full-blooded Filipino players, Guiao said the best bet would be a 6-foot-4 or 6-5 player, in the mold of a Kobe Paras perhaps, but a natural in the point guard or two positions.
Otherwise, Guiao said most any Filipino guard will only get lost in the surplus of great players in that position from all over the world.
To have a chance, a Filipino point guard must be as good as Facundo Campazzo, the 5-foot-10 starter of Argentina's national team who was signed by the Denver Nuggets last year.
"You have to be at that level," Guiao said. "But even him, he was already 29 when he got noticed."
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