Legislated basketball service?

Even before Gilas Pilipinas started sweeping the competition in the 29th Southeast Asian Games basketball tournament, an idea to legislate service to the Philippine basketball team has been floating around social media. An unnumbered draft in the form of a bill with no author has been posted on sites like Facebook, proposing to separate playing for the national team from playing professionally not just in the Philippine Basketball Association, but anywhere else.

Before we explore the pros and cons of any such law, let’s review the history of our basketball dichotomy. In 1938, the Manila Industrial Commercial Athletic Association or MICAA was formed, a sports outlet for wealthy business owners. Basketball players were employees who punched the clock like everyone else, but also practiced at night and played on weekends. Teams were a blend of older players who learned the game on the street, and collegiate standouts. The games were raw and rough, without much technical knowhow. Eventually, all the best players congregated there. By the early 1970’s, salaries rose to a healthy P2500 a month or thereabouts. If you were lucky, you also got a car with your new contract.

This was where the problem began. The Basketball Association of the Philippines, then under Lito Puyat, was borrowing MICAA players for international travel to train and compete. However, the trips started getting longer and longer. Soon, players were either returning to their teams injured, or not returning at all. Some did not even get to play in the MICAA at all in 1974. Naturally, MICAA team owners – who were still paying the players’ salaries, were livid. The only way out was to form a professional league, since pros were not allowed in international competition in the era before open basketball. The rebels would become the new establishment.

Since then, the country’s best players have gravitated towards the PBA, making their sport a career, providing stability for their families, and earning themselves fame and fortune. In 1990, the BAP persuaded the PBA to lend its players to the national team, and the result was the first all-pro team to play in an international competition (the 1990 Asian Games), ahead of the US Dream Team.

But it was a two-way street. In 2005, the RP Cebuana Lhuillier team joined a meaningless, one-week National Basketball Conference tournament. Starting center Ricky Calimag was plucked by Sta. Lucia Realty. Starting point guard Egay Echavez was recruited by Barangay Ginebra to suit up for an injured Jayjay Helterbrand. Two other point guards were injured or unavailable. Still, head coach Boysie Zamar took the team to the finals, winning by an average of 17 points. There, in a rematch with Taguig, they were bullied and outright hurt by PBA and Metropolitan Basketball Association veterans (not movie and TV actors as widely misrepresented), and lost by a few points. This whole mess led to the padlocking of the BAP office, the formation of a second Philippine team, and a long tug-of-war between two national federations. The country was suspended by FIBA, and there was no basketball competition in the 2005 SEA Games in the Philippines.

Of course, it would be ideal to have a full-time national team. The five-year NCC program left an indelible mark on the country’s hoops history, including a Jones Cup win over the US and triumph in the PBA. But do we need a law to do it again?

Firstly, any patron or sponsor would have to agree to not getting anywhere near the advertising exposure of a PBA team. With no year-round league to play in, that would be a given. Salaries would have to be similar to PBA pay, or else players would simply choose to turn pro. An athlete’s playing years are limited, so they must maximize their earning potential. Third, the team must have a heavy calendar: travel, training, scrimmages, foreign exposure, pocket tournaments, and so on. If not, the players would go stir crazy just practicing all the time. But this would entail even more expense.

The team would need a naturalized player, whose salary would likely be higher than the other players’. This means more legislation and even more cost. There might also need to be a back-up player for practice, lower tournaments and in case of injury. The team would need extra bodies who know the system, too.