I just realized how toxic Filipino basketball fans are.
No, I am not living inside a rock. All the while though, I was only speculating about the whole Gilas Pilipinas bit with Tab Baldwin seriously distancing himself from this mess, leaving Chot Reyes by his lonesome.
Nenad Vucinic’s short-lived stint says it all.
What’s with all the drama?
Seriously, he can do this with any other Southeast Asian country without the trolls. I know most SEA countries have their own problems and controversies but Milos Pejic and Rajko Toroman of Indonesia as well as Douglas Marty of Thailand and Vietnam’s Kevin Yurkus do not have the insurmountable task of leading the country against the likes of powerhouses as much as whoever is going to step up against Gilas Pilipinas.
Even returning Rain or Shine head coach Yeng Guiao wants nothing to do about the national squad and he was one of the shining moments of the team after the Gilas Pilipinas versus Australia brawl.
Hell, it had to take health and safety protocols for Tim Cone to step up.
Yes, I think Chot Reyes needs to step down but only because the public has lost faith in him.
But after 2023, we also need to factor in that we are incredibly close to the current goal.
Changing the pieces in this stage of the fight is a bad idea. In some ways, the PBA needs to really help SBP in everything they need because inasmuch as we need Jordan Clarkson and Kai Sotto, they are still plane tickets away from home. Clarkson in particular is embroiled in Utah’s rebuilding mess. Inasmuch as I commend Danny Ainge’s wheeling and dealing, I doubt if the Jazz would give up Clarkson to the Philippine cause that easily given that he’s basically the other gunman in their mix with Donovan Mitchell out of the picture and Bojan Bogdanovic also taking on national team duties.
Especially with Danilo Gallinari’s ACL injury. This basketball calendar year is really going to take its toll on several players.
Just take Jayson Castro for instance. He scored 30 points in a Game 7 romp that saw his team losing to the powerhouse San Miguel Beermen and now everyone is asking him to rejoin the team. Yes, The Blur can still go but if he rejects the offer, are we going to turn on him?
I think Chot Reyes is the right coach for Gilas Pilipinas because he can ably mix on-court situations with off-court distractions. He can also manage the organization in a coach/team president kind of manner. His resume says it all. But I think SBP needs to give him a break from all the emotional damage this coaching stint is forcing him to undergo. And yeah, I do think we need a foreign coach but only because he needs to shield himself from all the toxicity. The lesser he knows how passionate Filipino fans are, the better.
Maybe a non-English speaking coach?
I bet his translators could lessen the blow of all the talks.
But is it possible though? With how global the world is at the moment, it’s no secret how crazily insane basketball fanatics are to Philippine basketball.
I still think Gilas Pilipinas needs to be more on the players and less on the coaches. Again, someone needs to remind SBP that Gilas needs to have a stable basketball program with players rising from the ranks AFTER its established stars are physically and emotionally spent from all the grind. Now that is happening. When Baldwin decided to restart the pool to leave June Mar Fajardo, CJ Perez, Robert Bolick, Terrence Romeo, and the other young pro stars, this really made a void.