What now, Gilas?

Were pushing, punching, kicking, swearing and throwing chairs all worth the trouble that now befalls our dear, beloved national team?

We all saw it with our own eyes. We all witnessed how the lopsided July 2 encounter between Gilas Pilipinas and Australia turned into what can only be described as a brawl – an incident that caught worldwide attention and consequently resulted in several unfavorable outcomes.

Let’s go through the sanctions handed down by basketball’s world governing body– the FIBA.

Here are the suspensions for 10 Filipino players and two coaches:

Japeth Aguilar of Ginebra and Matthew Wright of Phoenix are out for one game each. They will likely miss the third window of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 Asian Qualifiers.

Terrence Romeo, Jayson Castro, and Troy Rosario of TNT, along with naturalized big man Andray Blatche, are suspended for three games each. They will likely miss the third and fourth windows of the Asian Qualifiers.

Roger Pogoy of TNT, Carl Bryan Cruz of Alaska and Jio Jalalon of Magnolia are out for five contests each; while Alaska’s Calvin Abueva is out for a whopping six games. All four are likely to miss the entire second round of the Asian Qualifiers.

And then there are the sanctions for assistant coach Jong Uichico and head coach Chot Reyes. Coach Jong will miss three games even as coach Chot is suspended for one game but fined an equivalent of more than half a million pesos.

The Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, as an organization, was also on the receiving end of hefty consequences. Gilas Pilipinas will play their next home game, which is against Qatar, behind closed doors (probably meaning no sponsors and live media coverage in addition to being closed off to the fans) and will be under probation for the next three years.

Should any untoward incidents involving Gilas take place again in that time period, two more home games will be played behind closed doors. The SBP also received a fine amounting to roughly P13.4 million.

As for the Boomers, Chris Goulding, Thon Maker and Daniel Kickert received varying degrees of suspensions while Basketball Australia was fined the equivalent of more than P5 million.

So now that we’ve reviewed the sanctions, what are their implications, specifically for Gilas Pilipinas?

As discussed on social media these past few days, the national team’s depth takes a big hit. Ten of the best Filipino basketball players have been sidelined and that means the SBP needs to call up 10 players to fill those spots in earnest.

It also goes without saying that someone will need to step into the head coach’s position in the one game coach Chot will miss.

All those things put together on top of the high stakes nature of the second round and the Asian Qualifiers’ quality of competition will definitely mean more rough roads ahead for Gilas Pilipinas.

Primarily, which players can step into the roles that Castro, Romeo, Aguilar, etc. have left and approximate their impact?

Remember that we’re not talking just about skill. That’s the easy part, especially with a deep well of talent in the PBA. We’re also talking about experience at the international level, willingness to commit a significant amount of time and perhaps most critical of all, availability to actually participate.

It’s easy to say we have guys like Alex Cabagnot, Paul Lee, LA Tenorio, Marcio Lassiter, JP Erram, Arwind Santos, Vic Manuel, Greg Slaughter and many others. But what is the status of their availability? Do they have any lingering injuries that may hamper their performance? How much experience have they had playing at the international level?

Why, we also have the Gilas cadets, guys like Kobe Paras, the Rivero brothers, Troy Rike, and Abu Tratter among others. Like the PBA stars mentioned above, these cadets have depth, but experience is where they may be found a little wanting.

The issue of Blatche’s stand-in as naturalized player has also come to fore.

Will we have Christian Standhardinger again like in the FIBA Asia Cup 2017, or will we recall Marcus Douthit? Are we willing to shell out and gamble on getting Filipino-American NBA player Jordan Clarkson to finally suit up? How about Isaiah Austin? Whatever happened to him?

No matter who the SBP chooses, the adjustment will be extreme, and the challenge facing the team will be tremendous. Their second round opponents – Iran, Qatar, and Kazakhstan – are no pansies by any imagination.

Iran has been Gilas’ bane for quite some time while both Qatar and Kazakhstan have given our team fits in the past.

We’d be facing tough times with our original Gilas pool, but now that the SBP will need to call in — for the lack of a better term — “replacements,” the level of difficulty in the Asian Qualifiers’ second round just increased big time.

As of this writing, we are sitting at third place in Group F right behind Australia and Iran, which both have five wins and one loss. Gilas has four wins and two defeats while right on our heels are the Kazakhs who split their six first round games, 3-3.

Japan, which has been bolstered by former PBA import Nick Fazekas, is tied with Qatar at two wins, four losses each.

This means that though the Philippines is among the highest ranked FIBA Asia teams on the planet, we have not yet achieved outright qualification to the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 in China. At worst, Gilas will need to win three games in the second round to more or less lock in one of the World Cup berths.

Anything less and chances are one team among Kazakhstan, Japan or Qatar will catch up with us and possibly push us by the wayside.

Smart moves need to be made moving forward – smarter than the moves that got us here in the first place.

The best-case scenario is that some of the PBA’s best will be available and help lead Gilas Pilipinas into the World Cup.

The worst case? The suspensions, collectively, prove too big a blow and the adjustments are just too much. Iran, Qatar, and Kazakhstan pounce on our depleted pool and we lose more games than we win.

Enzo Flojo is the only Asian columnist in FIBA Basketball and a resident basketball analyst at ABS-CBN Sports. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Developmental Studies and Master’s degree in Basic Education at the Ateneo de Manila University.

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