Photo by Tristan Tamayo/ INQUIRER.net
Gilas Pilipinas may have won the 2017 Seaba Championship and earned its way to the 2019 Fiba World Cup qualifiers, but for coach Chot Reyes, the job is just about to get harder.
The outspoken mentor bared that he now faces a tough conundrum as he devises a plan for the team’s preparation for the next international meets.
“We know it’s going to be a challenge, it’s going to be difficult,” he said.
As of now, Reyes said that he can’t answer everyone’s queries with regards to Gilas Pilipinas’ next moves, saying that everything will depend on what the agreement will be between the concerned parties.
“It all depends on the discussions with the PBA Board, with the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP), and with the other stakeholders on what the plan is going to be,” he said. “We purposely did not put a concrete plan in place until we won this first. I said, ‘Let’s win this first.’ And now that we know that we’re going to the World Cup qualifiers, we can sit down and put a plan together.”
The same goes with Andray Blatche’s status going forward, with the naturalized player set to leave the country to fulfill other responsibilities before joining the Philippines again later this year.
“We purposely kept the discussion with Andray for the Seaba first because if we didn’t win this, we would have nothing to talk about,” he said. :So now that we’ve gotten this, we have to sit down to figure out a schedule because he also has a tournament and obligations in the CBA, so we really don’t know what will happen or how that’s going to affect Andray’s schedule.”
Reyes, however, acknowledged that making and executing a plan is easier said than done.
“We all know that it’s not going to be as simple as that because obviously, there are a lot of schedules and other things to consider. The only thing we know is we have a cadet program in place, but other that, it’s all dependent on the discussions and the meetings that are going to happen after tonight,” he said.
And the only thing certain at this point, Reyes said, is the country’s next endeavors.
The 2017 Southeast Asian Games is slated in early August in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the 2017 Fiba Asia Cup in Beirut, Lebanon will also be in August, and the home-and-away series for the 2019 Fiba World Cup Asian qualifiers will be starting this November. The Philippines was grouped together with Australia, Japan, and Chinese Taipei in Group B.
Though the future looks complicated, Reyes expressed optimism that the parties will eventually find a compromise for the future of Gilas Pilipinas.
“We just have to sit down, put our heads together to find a way, and find the best possible solution, the best possible scenario,” he said. “I think we have a good group, I think we have the potential to be a really good, strong team. But I also understand that there are other interests and there are other needs that prevail. And it’s not only us that’s battling that. We just have to be very creative and figure out the best way forward.”