Gilas Pilipinas: Winless but not hopeless?

There’s no better way to describe Gilas Pilipinas than say it’s improving, despite going winless (0-3) in its first test as a team in Estonia last week.
There’s reason to believe the national basketball team can also show progress in its next stint in the Jones Cup in Taipei.
But the more pressing thing to determine now is whether or not the Gilas team could heal in time.
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Heal, because it was not a very healthy team that carried the Philippine colors in that four-nation pocket tournament.
Other than being depleted by injuries and inexplicable pullouts, Gilas was pillared by an out-of-shape Andray Blatche, who had to be rested upon rejoining the team in Manila due to a painful swollen prostate.
The 6-foot-10 Blatche was a non-entity when Gilas was swamped by the Netherlands by 27 points in its first outing. Blatche, so-so when Gilas fought it out with Estonia to lose by 10 points, scored 16 points in his team’s final outing against Iceland. Gilas lost by 10 points to go winless in the four-nation miniseries.
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It was reported that Blatche, grossly overweight, rejoined Gilas after a four-month lay-off.
This meant he will have to cram hard if he hopes to be of help when Gilas competes in the forthcoming Jones Cup in Taipei.
It was too bad Gilas was given only two months to regroup and rebuild for the Fiba Asia Men’s Championship in Hunan, China, starting late next month.
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National coach Tab Baldwin, who tried to take the team’s fate philosophically, was later quoted as wishing he had a deeper pool of players to select from.
Anyway, when it was later reported that one original team member had to leave for abroad in order to attend to his ailing mother, Baldwin was supposed to have said, sorry because they didn’t have the expertise and capability to remedy such defect.
Regarding the sudden decision by defense specialist Marc Pingris to rejoin—after having openly begged off because “there were things beyond our control”—coach Baldwin must’ve been partly gladdened by the return.
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If there’s someone the Gilas team needs, it’s a miracle worker who can soften the foul blow thrown by heartless commercial team owners who pulled out tested mainstays from the Gilas set-up.
Baldwin could only pray there would be no more lurking malady that could further stall his team.
By the way, going winless in its first international outing could be of help in that it showed how far Gilas had lagged behind.
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In fact, it would have been of little help if, say, Gilas had finished solidly and tripped Iceland in its final outing in Estonia.
Tweeted Alfonso Clifford: “Iceland is a country with a population of 325,000 where football, handball and wrestling are the national sports. So the population of men in their 20s is only 20,000, rough estimate. Same as a few barangays in Manila and they beat us?”