Rafe Bartholomew makes an excellent point in the comments section of the previous post about Smart Gilas’ search for an import:

How solid were the Jones/Barron/Butch/Sims rumors to begin with? Just because Gilas is interested in the player doesn't mean they're about to sign. Also, thanks to the intrepid reporting of the PhilStar writers who cover Gilas, I never once saw a quote from any naturalization candidate or his agent that the interest was mutual. How serious were these guys about joining Gilas? We don't really know, all we heard were Frankie Lim and Noli Eala saying positive things, which is what they're supposed to do. It's really the media's failure to report these stories thoroughly.

Also, it seems like trying to naturalize a big man out of the D-League is a mistake, not because those guys are not the best players available -- they probably are -- but because their choice to earn pennies in the NBDL instead of big bucks in Europe and Asia means that these guys haven't given up on the NBA dream. They might be willing to come play a conference in the PBA after the D-league season, but they probably won't want a long-term, open-ended commitment like Gilas, which would take them off the NBA map for years and effectively end their careers at the highest level.

I hate to say it, but Giles may have been Gilas's best option.

I completely agree with him that most of the sportswriters who have been covering this whole affair (not just Philippine Star writers) have done a piss-poor job as reporters. I would dare say, though, that the Dwayne Jones signing was as close to happening as reported; I couldn’t imagine Gilas team manager Frankie Lim telling reporters that Jones was close to signing if he weren’t reasonably close to doing it. At the very least, Lim probably thought that he had a really good chance at getting Jones.

As an example, in a report by the Star’s Joey Villar about Jones’s possible signing with Gilas, Lim was quoted about the move. In his follow-up story, after Jones was called up by the Suns, Villar brought up the possibility of acquiring Courtney Sims without quoting Frankie Lim directly.

To be sure, there are still other talented big guys in the D-League. I asked Scott Schroeder of the excellent D-League blog Ridiculous Upside about names that Smart Gilas ought to look into, and he graciously wrote back with a list of the best bigs in the D-League. The list, he said, was the same one he made for an NBA coach looking for prospects:

PF (Pretty top heavy)
Alexander Johnson
Rob Kurz
Lance Allred
Rod Benson
Paul Davis
Brian Butch
Raymond Sykes
Sean Sonderleiter

C
Greg Stiemsma
Kurt Looby
John Bryant
Dwayne Jones
Earl Barron
Marcus Campbell
Michael Fey
Luke Nevill

I had to pick 8 guys. The italicized guys, I said, were those that I thought would have a chance at NBA prospects with a good Summer League or preseason next year - that might be a good place to start.

There's another Asia Challenge going on next week, too - there might be a few prospects there. As far as I can tell, the bigs on the D-League roster that's going will include just Noel Felix and either Alade Aminu (cut today by Miami) or Sean Sonderleiter.

Tough to tell who would be willing to commit to playing in the Phillipines for the duration is the only problem. I like Greg Stiemsma quite a bit and he's played in Korea, so that might make sense.

Like Rafe and Scott, I also think that getting any prospect to commit to playing for Gilas is very difficult. However, if Jones really was as close to signing as I thought he was, then Lim must have made a pretty serious offer to the leading rebounder of the D-League.

Curiously, former import Jamal Sampson was hesitant to sign up with Gilas because the team, then managed by SBP executive director Noli Eala, offered a much lower salary than what teams in the Chinese Basketball Association offered. I’m assuming that Lim is going to these D-League guys with a much better package than is being offered in China, lest he be laughed out of the gym by his prospects.

If this is true, where would Lim get a bigger pile of money to offer to imports? It’s not inconceivable that SBP President and Smart Gilas sponsor Manny Pangilinan would increase the budget for that import’s salary.

Or perhaps, Lim’s takeover of Gilas operations cut a lot of fat. One of the first orders of business for the San Beda coach was to dismantle a Smart Gilas team management committee composed of Butch Antonio, Rico Meneses, Bernie Atienza and Joey Bautista, all personalities identified with Eala.

The four guys were reassigned by Eala to work elsewhere with the SBP. However, as Eala himself confirmed, they are no longer part of the payroll of the Smart Gilas program.