Gilas remains hot topic

CHOT REYES left Gilas Pilipinas on his own accord. No one was able to drive him away from the team, just when all those who hated him felt that the man bankrolling the team, Manny V. Pangilinan, would do.
The clamor for Chot to leave reached fever pitch a couple of days after Gilas gave the country its worst-ever finish in the Asian Games — seventh place — which was marred by squabbling among teammates and that infamous own goal he ordered for Marcus Douthit to make against Kazakhstan.
Reyes’ haters did not get their wish, even if their rants ran for weeks on the internet. Chot left just when everyone thought that he was going to stay — or, at least, when everyone thought that he still had a shot at staying put.
The firebrand coach, who has been in charge of the Gilas program since 2012, said in a statement released through the ABC5 website that he was going to give the wheel to someone else, and that he had asked the selection committee to strike his name off the potential short list of candidates.
Pangilinan readily accepted his request, though with a heavy heart.
And with that, the era of Reyes as national coach is over and the country is waiting with bated breath as to who will succeed him at the helm.
There are so many questions left hanging when Reyes left. Questions such as was it the real thing that Chot wanted, or was he just given a respectable way out by Pangilinan?
Will the players play for another coach? Who will succeed him, ultimately? Will the MVP Group — like it did in the past — have complete control as to who it would like to handle the team that it funds?
And is the departure of Reyes done at the right time, with the Fiba-Asia Qualifying tournament for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics just 10 months away?
There are so many questions than answers when Reyes left, which could do more harm than good as far as the national team is concerned.
But I am sure that our basketball leaders have their reasons and that I am in no position to dispute that.

******

Tim Cone, the two-time Grand Slam winner in the PBA who also handled a national team more than a decade back, looms as one of the prime candidates — if not the biggest candidate — to take Reyes’ place.
Cone also won the Jones Cup when he handled the Centennial Team of all homegrown players in 1998, but also failed in winning the gold medal in the Asian Games.
No PBA coach has won the Asian Games gold, with the silver medal finish of the 1990 squad handled by Robert ‘Sonny’ Jaworski booking the country’s best-ever achievement ever since the PBA started helping out the Philippine Five.
Cone knows what it takes to win — and to fall short — in the international stage, and he spoke at length in an interview with the Inquirer two weeks ago that he still feels that Reyes is still the man for the job.
That obviously didn’t work, because the fact that Reyes quit and the fact that Pangilinan accepted his resignation proves that Chot himself and the business tycoon feel that change is needed at this time.
Who are we to dispute that?

******

The selection committee met for the first time last Thursday and came up with a criteria which it will use to fill its short list of candidates. The meeting was kept under wraps that not even the place and time of the meeting was bared to the media.
After the meet, a press release was sent informing the media that the group had come up with the criteria, though the contents of which the statement also did not divulge.
The National team has become big news ever since the country won the Jones Cup in 2012, finished a fighting second to Iran in the Fiba-Asia World Qualifying in Manila and then won its first World Cup game in four decades with a victory over Senegal in Seville, Spain last September —achievements that came with Reyes in charge of the program.
There have been so many things being floated as to what that criteria contained, but the most believable of them all was that the group supposedly wants someone who can handle the team on a full time basis.
That means that Cone would not be a candidate because of his duties with Purefoods in the PBA. That would also strike out Jong Uichico and Norman Black from the list because they handle Talk ‘N Text and Meralco, respectively.
Tab Baldwin, a native of New Zealand who is a naturalized American, sat beside Reyes on the bench in the World Cup and Asian Games and is rumored to be the next man who would be handling Gilas.
Baldwin acts as consultant to all the teams of the MVP group in the PBA and has no real ties at the moment, making him able to satisfy the wish of the selection committee — should that be true — that they want someone to handle the team full time.
But let me ask this: Why go for a full-time coach when the man won’t have a full time team to handle?
If the national basketball program will continue to be dependent on the PBA for players, then there’s no use tapping a full time coach. If the PBA cannot give the national team at least six months to train religiously, then the Philippines will again be up against very tall odds internationally.
It’s not only a new coach that Gilas needs, it also needs time to prepare.