If you’re a fan of the Smart Gilas Pilipinas national basketball team, I would highly recommend checking out the forums at Interbasket.net. Apart from intelligent discussion of the national team program (and the best Jaemark-bashing anywhere on the Internet – I love it!), the threads also feature the presence of SBP insider Nardy Madrasto, who has been helping the SBP with, among other things, getting in touch with Fil-foreign players from around the world.

Nardy’s posts have been both enlightening and entertaining – check out the photos he posted of CJ Giles and his Manila girlfriend – and in a recent contribution to the forums, he explained what’s going on with the SBP and the process of finding an import for naturalization for the team:

with business not really that good due to world recession, MVP running thin as he is busy acquiring other companies, and with the coming elections I think the SBP would stick to its planned budget in which we'll have one naturalized player especially with next year's continuous training the team would do overseas would cost a lot of US Dollars. It would be ideal to have such a back-up plan but at this time it is not conceivable as its not practical at the moment. We'll just have to pray that Jamal would go all the way without any injuries and nothing of those things which Giles and Taft did.

With no government funding and not much help from the private sector with regards to the finances, our hands are tied-up. Then we have to accumulate funds at the moment as we are chasing the hosting of the 2011 FIBA-Asia and that entails big money as construction of a new state-of-the-art arena or stadium would be a part of it once we get the nod.

Of course, the patriotic readers of the Interbasket forums have come to the rescue, trying to get a fund drive started so that they can contribute their hard-earned money for the noble Smart Gilas cause.

Meanwhile, the team’s new import, Jamal Sampson, was unimpressive in his debut against Barako Bull last Friday after he blew out his back. Since Nardy said that we’ll just have to pray that Sampson remains injury-free for his stint, maybe the concerned forum members should put away their wallets and take out their rosaries and prayer booklets instead.

Quinito, by the way, reports that there’s no cause for concern when it comes to Sampson’s health.