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Thursday, June 09, 2005
Oyson: 5th place in Fiba-Asia Cup is decent finish?
By Manuel N. Oyson, Jr.
Counter Punch
There is one thing we can say about our athletes who always finish last or next to the last in international sports competitions. Team coaches or team officials can always come up with the appropriate excuse that is already stock-in-trade: decent finish. Or credible finish. Or not likely to shock or embarrass others, according to Webster. Okay, I was not shocked and embarrassed. I expected it.
The phrase has been so abused that it has become stale and timeworn.
This was how the Philippine Daily Inquirer described the fifth-place finish of the national basketball team in last week’s so-called Fiba-Asian Champions Cup at the Araneta Coliseum. Four wins in seven outings. Kuwait was sixth, seventh was Syria, while Kazakhstan was eighth. Winless India and UAE brought up the rear.
AWAKENING. Despite this, national coach Chot Reyes was euphoric and ecstatic when he described it as the best finish so far by an all-Filipino team in seven years in the Fiba-Asian Champions Cup. The Philippines was also fifth in the same tournament in 1977. A year before, the Filipinos, reinforced by China’s Ma Jian, captured the championship. There were previous 10th place-finishes in previous tournaments.
There were actually10 teams which participated this year. They included Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Iran, UAE, Kazakhstan, India, Lebanon, Syria and host Philippines. If Team Philippines expected its match-ups with the rest of the competition to be a walk in the park, it certainly got a rude awakening. This is the vanguard of the team that is to sally forth in the Seaba Games in September and the SEA Games, all the way to the World Basketball Championships in Saitama in 2006. Even all the way to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
NO PRESTIGE. Never mind who will actually represent us in Men’s basketball in the Seag in Manila. Remember that there is also the so-called RP-BAP Training Team under coach Boysie Zamar. Retaining the Seag basketball title is not that important.
There is no prestige or feather in one’s cap in being the Seag cage champion. It is the lowest in the category of international basketball tournaments recognized by Fiba.
The showing of Team Philippines in the Fiba-Asia Cup (whether it be termed decent, credible or best finish – or whatever – according to one’s perception) makes me wonder if all the brouhaha brought about by its long training and preparation and the resulting war of words between the Philippine Olympic Committee and the Basketball Association of the Philippines, which it suspended indefinitely because of differences over a supposed Memorandum of Agreement, was after all, an exercise in futility.
TRYING-HARDS. Or too much ado about nothing. The stark reality facing the national basketball team is that it has demonstrated even right before its home crowd that it is no match against the teams from the Middle East. Note that South Korea, Japan and China did not compete. And we still insist that we are ripe to go back to Olympic competitions after 1972 in Munich? As far as basketball is concerned, the Philippine is a nation of trying-hards. Even with the assistance of Fil-foreigners.
Let us be realistic about this. Our basketball is hanggang PBA lamang (for the PBA only). The fans love PBA games for their amusement and entertainment value. Without the perpetual corporate angels, the league would not have survived this long for 39 years. I feel awkward watching a few PBA-ers trying to ape NBA’ greats Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan or Dwyane Wade or Tim Duncan in slam-dunking. Let us forget this foolish dream of making it again to the Olympic Games in basketball. We are not cut out for it.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’m not disappointed with my players. I’m just extremely disappointed with the results.” – Miami Heat coach Stan van Gundy after losing Game 7 to the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Eastern Conference championships
(June 9, 2005 issue)
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