In terms of fairness and... basically, to all the brouhaha they are going to cause now and would cause after, putting the Strong Group Athletics in the PBA as a team is going to be the final nail in the coffin of the league.
Can you imagine a team composed of three Americans, one naturalized Filipino, one Filipino American who has yet to suit up with the team that drafted him, one Filipino who has ditched the PBA for over three years now, and six collegiate players, some of which have switched college teams as if they are NBA unrestricted free agents?
No.
However, are we ready for former NBA players who have established some sort of rapport with the PBA fans and a team like the Strong Group that is some sort of pseudo-national team?
Yes, please!
At the moment, a player like Justin Brownlee, Marcus Douthit, Andray Blatche, and even Ben Mbala, Sam Ekwe, Kirk Long, Alex Compton, Chris Clay, and former long-time UAAP or NCAA foreign students are going to be great for league PR. While their existence has messed up a lot of future Pinoy marquee centers, they identified their selves as Filipino for a considerable amount of time and this is a reason for fans to not discriminate against them. Kirk Long was just a 3-and-D guy when he was with the Ateneo Blue Eagles and the PBA couldn't allow his application.
He was just 24 when he was trying to lobby for a pass.
Kirk Long is about to turn 36 in 2024 and the PBA stance is still what it was a dozen years ago.
As he grew older, leagues like the Japan B-League and the KBL grew wiser.
Sometimes, the old leagues like the PBA and the CBA can't get their heads straight.
As for Dwight Howard, he is an attraction. I know most imports are arrogant and they feel like the PBA is a demotion, but the NBA is not the paradise it once was. Most star players are heavily scrutinized by the media and while some try to get their old selves back, most of them are swallowing the fact that Euroleague or a CBA stint for that matter is a good way to get back their love for the sport. When Howard moved to Taiwan, he found life easy. He can spam his numbers and at the same time, endear his character to the place. It's the same thing he is doing in the Philippines - although Taiwan acted as a precedent to what he is doing now.
Having a 38-year-old character like Howard is a good thing for the PBA.
They can just gift him to Blackwater to tell them that when taking a "Maurice Shaw," he needs to play like a "Dwight Howard."
The PBA can pose restrictions on the players. For example, they have to play limited minutes during the Philippine Cup, or they must be part of a pool. Hell, they can even have a rule wherein for a team to have this kind of player, they must have an Asian import in their team as well.
For everyone who said the PBA needs to be for Filipinos, then are they the same people who invest time, money, and effort to go to their games? The PBA has had a half-hearted approach to developing the league for the future but at the same time, the fans have been negative without a rational solution for some time now. If there is one thing the J-League and the KBL teams are not doing, it's investing in the Arab players. Back when the PBA had Asian imports,
If back then, we shelved the idea because their players were playing here to check out our brand of basketball, now we need the idea back to make the PBA internationally viable.
What if we have Iran's Hamed Haddadi or Benham Yakhchali? I know Hamed is about to turn 40, but he is an attraction that would put asses in seats. The same can be said with Jordan's Ahmad Dwairi (or Ahmet Duverioglu), who is currently playing for the Turkish League. His teammate, and the other player who failed in the Asian Games drug test alongside Justin Brownlee, is Sami Bzai. It took time for me to check out his career because he doesn't have a Wiki page and his Real GM stats revolve around his US NCAA career. The same can be said with their elite PG Freddy Ibrahim. Jordan doesn't really have a competitive league in their country and even so, a stint in the PBA would give them the necessary international exposure. And given the current landscape in Lebanon, it would be awesome to see Wael Arakji and Ali Haidar in the PBA. I guess one of the biggest reasons why it would be difficult to see these players in the league is that except for Haddadi, Dwairi, and Haidar, most of these players are combo guards.
The PBA is littered with combo guards.
Anyway, this is one of the better ways to entice attendance for the league. Alongside a more accessible home and away format and a re-structured sponsorship process, this could help the league become more competitive.