They won’t go to Spain without a seven-footer, national basketball team coach Chot Reyes swore at the close of the Fiba Asia championship at Mall of Asia Arena last July.
Reyes has ended up with Andray Blatche, an inch short of seven-feet but, being an NBA veteran, packs enough credentials to pillar for the Gilas Pilipinas national squad in its stint in the Fiba World Cup starting at the end of this month.
Gilas Pilipinas figured miserably in a four-team pocket tournament in Antibes, France, over the weekend.
The national squad, after a proud losing stand against France, got mangled in its two succeeding matches against Australia and Ukraine.
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Blatche, at this reporting, has yet to display his full worth, having had to sit out the game against Ukraine after playing limited minutes against Australia.
Gilas Pilipinas was reported set to play the Basque national squad last Tuesday.
Anyway, coach Reyes didn’t seem bothered or concerned that, thus far, Blatche has not demonstrated if he would opt to be mainly involved in point production, or function as full-fledged slotman who would defend the post and facilitate.
No big problem it seemed, until Reyes ended up openly decrying the soft, tentative stand taken by his two big boys, namely Japeth Aguilar and June Mar Fajardo, against Ukraine.
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The way the national coach’s displeasure was described, Aguilar and Fajardo visibly scampered as though they had suffered hardness of breath while their limbs stiffened during crucial confrontations, thus allowing the hefty opposition to score around the slot unmolested.
They had a name for this form of gutless performance during the days of fearless basketball warriors like Charlie Badion and Tembong Melencio: “Dinaga” which, plainly put, meant these towering softies suffered from rodent fear at the height of battle.
This shameful loss of character must’ve been very visible in the Gilas game against Ukraine.
In fact, coach Reyes was so frustrated he went as far as suggest he could call in the wide-bodied certified banger Beau Belga to add warrior muscle and heart around the slot.
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“Yes, that’s what I’ve noticed, they’re afraid to get hurt, they keep avoiding getting harmed as this could jeopardize their rich PBA career,” commented national cycling hero Jesus Garcia, Jr., a self-taught deadline beater who writes a weekly sports column for the Sunday Punch in Dagupan.
Good point there. But what’s doubly troubling is the fact that these nervous national team big boys must’ve been allowed to join the campaign in Spain with no exact idea of what the noble mission was about.
Maybe it’s too late, but let those concerned be reminded that, after the qualifying regional championship, competition inevitably rises to an unforgiving combat, test of stock and lineage, once a team reaches the Fiba World Cup proper, where warriors don’t think twice before risking scalp and limb.
This, no doubt, is a sporting war Gilas Pilipinas has entered—where only the fearless and the truly dedicated shine and survive.