Upsetting Team USA

I AM sure basketball fans remember the 1992 Dream Team at the Barcelona Olympics fielded by the Americans consisting of the finest NBA stars like Michael Jordan, Clyde Drexler, Larry Bird, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Scottie Pippen, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin and John Stockton.

It was a real All-Star team that awed the opponents and as expected delivered the gold for the Americans.
They sent the best team they can form because they realized that other countries can beat them already if they continue sending collegiate players back then.

In the ongoing FIBA World Cup, the Americans did not field their A-Team and as a result, Team USA lost back-to-back games against France and Serbia.

Sure, Kemba Walker is a superstar and the team is coached by the legendary Gregg Popovich but the other teams have leveled up their game.

As a result, the Americans will finish at either seventh or eighth place (after Saturday afternoon’s classification game against Poland) after getting beaten by France in the quarterfinals then losing to Serbia in their battle for fifth place, a game many were looking forward to as the finals.

Of course, the reasons emerged as the team lacked the talents like LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Paul George and Kawhi Leonard who begged off from the FIBA World Cup for various reasons.

But then, bottom line is that the Americans are back to square one and have to redeem themselves again in international basketball. That is, if they really are serious about it.

Now why am I talking about Team USA?

You see, our basketball model have been mirroring the NBA and its style of play, meaning more dazzling and electrifying one-on-one moves by players instead of the world-level style of continuous ball movement and looking always for the open man.

The Philippines’ lack of outside shooters also added to our woes.

Look at the preparation time given for Gilas prior to the World Cup, and the available talents that Yeng Guiao had to choose from.

The USA and PH were just unfamiliar with the international brand of games and it is not a surprise that both teams failed.

Other countries have learned that Americans can be beaten in basketball. The awe factor has long disappeared. That is why they need to send their best team for the 2020 Olympics and the next FIBA World Cup.

They can’t go easy on these games anymore.

And if the Americans need to send their best, the Philippines, too, need to field the best team they can form.

Guiao has already stepped down as national coach and he shared his observations that we need taller guards and bigs that are agile and fast and can shoot from any distance. But then again, didn’t we know this long before the World Cup began?

If you follow online exchanges, fans are saying anything to everything like Tab Baldwin should return as coach because he is familiar with the international rules and game style.

But then that is just one part of the whole, and this was my point in my previous column here. If we really want to compete and not just reach the world level competition then we need to pull out all stops to accomplish this, or as I have been saying, scale down on our expectations.

Now something came across my mind too.

What happens when Manny V. Pangilinan, the godfather of the Gilas Pilipinas program, is gone from the scene.

He is not getting younger and when he moves out of the First Pacific Group, I do not think it will be the same at all as far as how generous the group will be in supporting Philippine basketball the way it does now under MVP.

We need to form a team and sustain it for a long period of time for the players to jell.

Again, I am just a simple basketball observer and everyone is free to disagree but do not expect me to argue with anyone especially those who will just be emotional about the whole thing.

Enough said.