Can’t Chot Reyes hear the people?

CHOT Reyes, deposed, reinstated, floating, whatever, national basketbal coach, swears it’s up to the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP), the ruling national basketball body, to put him where he should belong.

There has been a national outcry for the banishment of Reyes from his post following a dismal, worst-ever performance in the last Asian Games in Incheon, Korea.

On Thursday, there were, however, two conflicting press releases that tried but failed to set the record straight.

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The SBP announced at midday a “participative and consultative approach in the initial selection process of the new national teams” for the 2015 international calendar. The SBP said its board has approved the formation of a screening selection committee composed “of SBP board members representing the UAAP, NCAA, Cesafi, Naascu, through SBP executive director Sonny Barrios, for national teams not involving PBA players.”

There was no direct mention of Reyes or his fate.

But before the sun could set on the same day, Reyes said his Gilas team has not been disbanded. Reyes said this was the assurance he got from his main benefactor, SBP president Manny V. Pangilinan.

Reyes said Gilas will “continue under a regime of broader consultation with the basketball community which I support.”

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Anyway, Reyes has obviously failed to get the message that the developments, including the formation of a new selection committee, were clearly meant to also give him a decent way out.

The SBP and Reyes’ immediate benefactor did not have the heart to fire him, although there has remained an overwhelming clamor for him to stand down following the Asiad debacle.

Reyes had been credited for leading Philippine basketball back on the international stage with the national team’s nerve-wracking stint in the 2014 Fiba World Cup in Spain. But there is a compelling consensus he was not up to the task, mainly after that shameful debacle in Incheon last September.

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Anyway, as previously noted here, the Gilas program should first be cured before it’s nurtured again.

At least, basketball fathers and benefactors have never dared or tried to single out Reyes as the biggest abscess in the national team set-up.

Reyes is definitely being unfair to himself by continuously refusing to hear the people’s voice.

Or is he being influenced by this unwanted alien, an overstaying bootlicker who is obviously being guided by the unholy spirit in his rants against the committee-based approach to the formation of a national team?