Gilas Pilipinas needs Greg Smith on board fast
As expected, the Philippines has just ruled the SEABA Championship, which assured itself of a slot in the FIBA Asia Cup and get itself an opportunity to play in the 2019 World Cup via the long route.
Now the next question is, what’s next for Gilas Pilipinas, a team that is in charge of putting up a squad to play in major international tournaments?
Just a few days after its overpowering showing in the SEABA, Gilas management and coaching staff could not provide a concrete answer yet except to wait for the PBA Board meeting on Thursday where head coach Chot Reyes could lay out his program.
Gilas Pilipinas will have a busy schedule over the next few months as the team will compete in FIBA Asia Cup this August.
The Southeast Asian Games, to which the Philippines had lorded over the basketball competitions from 1991 onwards, will also be held a few days after the FIBA Asia Cup.
The William Jones Cup, an event which the Philippines has been regularly participating in, is a possible stopover of the team that will be selected by Reyes and will compete in August.
Should Gilas Pilipinas get a good showing in the FIBA Asia Cup, its next worry would be the first step of the home and away competitions this November.
This would mean that Gilas Pilipinas will have to start gearing up its preparations in the coming days based on the initial agreement that the team that would be selected will be pulled out two months before taking part in the tournaments. But there are many questions being raised a few months before they plunge to action in the big events.
Who will be the players going to represent Gilas? Is the previous team, the most formidable squad ever assembled in SEABA, be retained?
Reyes said they have yet to craft a program as they need to win the SEABA before coming up with their next move.
Initially, the board of governors had agreed to loan one player each to help the Gilas program outside of the Cadet players they previously had. These Cadet players are now in the PBA and can be pulled out every time the Philippines need to compete in international competitions.
The availability of naturalized player Andray Blatche is another question as the NBA veteran has a commitment with the Xinjiang Flying Tigers in the Chinese Basketball Association. The CBA season starts in October, which means the ex- Brooklyn Nets player will not be able to play in November at the start of the six-window home and away competitions.
Blatche and Gilas Pilipinas have yet to negotiate on the team’s next tournaments until after SEABA, but with the former’s uncertainty in the future events, it is only logical for the country’s governing body in basketball to fast track the naturalization of Greg Smith.
Smith, import of Blackwater in the ongoing PBA Commissioner’s Cup, already inked an agreement with Gilas Pilipinas management and the next move is to bring up to speed his eligibility to play for the national team via legislation.
The SBP needs to act fast. If Gilas Pilipinas decided to bring in a naturalized player in Blatche to play in a tournament it could dominate all along, it is certainly a must for the Philippines to have a naturalized player on standby playing in FIBA Asia Cup, the SEA Games and the home and away competitions.