London DREAMS is falling down, falling down, falling down

In a recent article by veteran scribe Quinito Henson, he quoted the neo-godfather of Philippine basketball Manny V. Pangilinan as saying that “If we don’t make it to London, life goes on”—referring of course to the MVP-sponsored Smart Gilas basketball program headed by one-time FIBA champ, Serbian coach Rajko Toroman.

The honesty was well appreciated, and no one is really counting on the current selection of players to qualify for the FIBA Worlds. Not when your most bankable player is an undersized, slow-footed shooting guard who, to his credit, plays with everything he has, but is a lock to be bullied by other shooting guards from foreign countries (r: Chris Tiu).

It also doesn’t help when the program aims not to develop its local bigs and have all but ceded to getting imports to speed things up. It’s been two or three years now, and Greg Slaughter is still toiling in the bench (maybe a year under Ateneo and Norman Black would polish him up), Japeth Aguilar is all but an asterisk in PBA draft history, and Jason Ballesteros is not even worth Rico Maierhofer’s jockstrap at this point.

Perhaps Team MVP has a plan somewhere (like” acquiring a 3rd PBA franchise and name it the Maynilad Aquanauts” as hinted on/ reported by Beth Celis via Meralco team manager Ricky Vargas) and is looking to get more players. At the moment, if MVP really wanted to form a competitive team for international competition, he could draw players from his PBA teams and friends.

Yes, it would undoubtedly hurt his mini-game of one-upmanship with the Cojuangco’s San Miguel franchise, but in the name of everything patriotic, it would be the most logical thing to do.

Think about it, an MVP super-team (MVP’s Talk N Text and Meralco plus their usual trade conduits: Air21, Barako Bull, Powerade and Rain or Shine) for 2012 would have (in 1st 5/2nd 5/ 3rd 5 order):

PG Ryan Reyes/ Jason Castro/ Chris Ross
SG Mac Cardona/ Sol Mercado
SF Kelly Williams/ Gabe Norwood/ Jared Dillinger
PF Ranidel de Ocampo/ Harvey Carey/ Beau Belga
C Import/ Greg Slaughter/ Rob Reyes/

Of the five positions, we’re only weak at the SG slot with scorers instead of shooters (Ritualo would be a bit too old by then) and the C wherein we could always get an import or two. Asi Taulava would be out of the mix since he’d be in his 40s by then and would be unreliable given the rigorous training and schedule of the PBA and international tourneys. Jimmy Alapag would also be by his late 30s by then. If Alaska will lend say, Sonny Thoss and Joe DeVance, then that would surely help. Tenorio’s too slow-footed laterally to be effective in the FIBA tourney where he can’t simply outrun opponents.

Back to the topic in hand, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here, and just hope that we catch a good break OR discover a Filipino Shaquille O’Neal or Tim Duncan out in the South or even abroad.  For now, as long as the Smart Gilas team represents our country well and fights night in and night out, I’ll be good.

But if you see them bowing their heads and trying to impress scouts, then the team should be disbanded right away and our "national" sport be switched to billiards.