A few weeks ago, I got an email from a curious source: Smart Gilas import Jamal Sampson. He took issue with an item I posted about his performance in China, where I quoted a ShamSports report calling him “a pretty awful offensive player.” Sampson said that during the season in question, when he averaged a paltry 10 points and 10 rebounds, he was playing with a hamstring injury. He also pointed out that in a previous season in China, he dominated the CBA, leading the Liaoning team to the finals, while averaging upwards of 20 points and 20 rebounds. One report on Eurobasket even called him “arguably the most expensive and impressive import in CBA history.”

Contrary to reports, Sampson said that he is still under contract with Smart Gilas, even as he is working to get a release, with a bigger offer in China waiting for him. In a series of emails to Fire Quinito, Sampson wrote about the problems he has encountered with Smart Gilas.

As always, this blog is open to any response from the SBP and Smart Gilas regarding this matter.

On his current situation:

“Under my contract, I got the month of February off, so I’m back home, but still under contract with [the SBP]. They won’t let me out of my contract, but I keep reading they wanna get rid of me. The team tried their hardest to convince me to stay and work it out, and try to make a deal work last week before I left. I’m still owed money from December, we are in February now, and I haven’t gotten it all.”

On the Middle East trip:

“While we were in Qatar, before we even went to Dubai, I asked to be released, and they told me they would, right after the Dubai trip, but that hasn’t happened.

“December’s payment that was owed to me was late. Under my contract, they owed me a payment by January 1st, no later, well before we left for Qatar and Dubai. If it wasn’t paid, my contract states that I didn’t have to play or practice. I wasn’t obligated to play in Qatar or Dubai.

“I tried to play through the injury because I like the guys on the team. They expected me to go out and risk my knee, while I haven’t even been paid from the first month. It’s February right now, and I’m still owed money I should have got in December from the first month I was on the team.”

On his contractual problems with the SBP:

“The team didn’t meet numerous contractual things. I had a bigger deal in China, but the team wanted to keep me so they kept upping their offer to meet, that’s why the process of me signing took so long. Unfortunately, from the beginning all those things put in the contract to get me to stay weren’t met, late and missed payments, and other things promised in the contract couldn’t be delivered.”

On issues with the SBP organization:

“You have a lot of people doing jobs that they are unqualified to be doing. The whole program is unorganized, and other people in the organization feel the same as me, and have told me it was gonna be like this from the beginning, but won’t speak up now ‘cause they don’t want to lose their job.

“For example, look at the assistant coaching staff, show me qualifications to be coaching a national team. What serious level coaching experience do they have? How is someone in their life under 5 feet who never played in the post in their life gonna be a big man coach and show me stuff? Someone under 5 feet can be a great coach, don’t get me wrong, but to be a big man coach and have never played in the post or even played high level ball? C’mon now.

“I asked to be released because I could see how unorganized and unprofessional it was. When you start off the first month not being paid right, that’s a tell-all. Stuff with my condo weren’t handled right. I slept on the floor in Manila for 5 days with no bed, that’s how unorganized things are.”

On SBP executive director Noli Eala’s motivation:

“I was told by numerous sources that on a team retreat Noli said to the team, he started this program only to get back at the PBA for what they did to him. That right there says enough. This whole thing wasn’t even started for the right reasons.”

On Coach Rajko Toroman:

“The players are treated like kids by Coach Toroman. Just like [former import] CJ [Giles] was blamed for taking the team out on a wild night. The players are from the age of 19 to 25, they are grown men, no one made them do anything. Toroman just goes by what the SBP tells him, he doesn’t know what happens behind the scenes, with payments and other contractual obligations not being met.”

UPDATE: A very interesting response from commenter Gilas Insider, who I know for a fact is a Gilas insider: “i don't like to say bad stuff bout Jamal cause he's my friend. It still is disappointing that he didn't play but of course when it comes to all these salary stuff, that's behind the scenes and we dont know much. BUt what i do know is that, it's not just him who doesn't get paid on time. Sometimes the other guys also don't get their salaries on time, and believe me, they need that salary more than he does, but that doesn't really keep them from playing.”

I know she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I honestly enjoy Beth Celis’ work. She always plays the role of the ditz in her columns, but she also writes about a lot of things other writers just ignore; for example, she was the only writer who kept tabs on Rudy Distrito regularly over the last 5 years.

Today she writes about Al-Riyadi coach Fuad Abou Chakra, who’s in Manila to take in some PBA games, look for sports therapists, and potentially work on a program to send young players from Lebanon to the Philippines for training.

I found it interesting, because the strong relationship between some Lebanese and Filipino basketball communities has been a terribly underreported story. Lebanon’s national basketball team, in fact, has held its training camp prior to major international tournaments right here in Manila for the past three years.

Strengthening institutional linkages with other countries is something the Samahang Basketball ng Pilipinas and all its stakeholders, including the PBA, should work on. And no, it should go beyond Smart Gilas playing in a Dubai invitational tournament or Purefoods playing exhibition games in Qatar during the offseason.

For example, club teams from the Middle East play each other all the time, and as a result, all of them have improved considerably, and it does not diminish their respective domestic leagues. Meanwhile, there are fledgling basketball leagues in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines, and yet teams from these countries’ leagues rarely play each other in tournaments that matter.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese coach was also all praises for the performance of erstwhile Smart Gilas import CJ Giles, whom his team signed to a three-year deal. Chakra, though, was fully aware of the problems that Giles’s behavior could cause. “He’s still the same CJ Giles with problems and emotional baggage on and off the court. The key was to find the right way to handle him,” he told Celis.

Like I said in the previous post, I hadn’t seen enough of Smart Gilas in Dubai, so these are more general thoughts. That said, I was thoroughly impressed with the team’s performance, and like any other Pinoy basketball fan, I am hopeful that this is the start of the team’s steady climb.

Anyway, some of my thoughts, in bullets:

• Rajko Toroman is preparing his team to defend against bigger teams, and so far it’s working. It shouldn’t come as a surprise though, because the team did well too against bigger teams in the Fiba-Asia Champions Cup last year even when CJ Giles went down. Does anyone else find it funny that the strategy works for 6’11” American imports but not for 6’3” PBA forwards? Good thing Gilas won’t have to play against Richard Yee or Chad Alonzo in the Asian Games.


• Mac Baracael was the breakout star for Gilas in the tournament, especially in the last few games. I’m curious to know, from those who’ve been watching, what position he has been playing. Back in the Champions Cup, he saw a lot of action as an undersized power forward and stepped up big-time. Interestingly, Toroman’s wish list before the Dubai tournament if he had a choice of PBA players consisted of Kelly Williams, Gabe Norwood, Jared Dillinger, and Arwind Santos, all of whom play Baracael’s small forward position. I wonder if the list still looks like that today, or if he plans to go small-ball with a wingman playing the four-spot.


• Curiously, Toroman has name-dropped Asi Taulava in interviews after the Dubai tournament as someone who could fill in the team’s needs. Interesting.


• Chris Tiu has been quite a surprise. He’s really, actually good. He’s bulked up, and he’s surprisingly athletic—although PBA 2-guards still gave him a lot of trouble. It’s not as much of a problem against Middle Eastern club teams, who probably don’t run as many isolations and pick-and-rolls for their shooting guards. He gets a lot of cheap points in the Gilas half-court set, not just off jumpers, but backdoor cuts, screen-and-rolls, etc. He’s not a superstar, but he’s mind-numbingly solid. He’s just so steady, which was probably why he kept playing well in the PBA even as the rest of his teammates were struggling. I apologize to Tiu for calling him the next Alfie Almario.
  
  (This was actually originally part of an email exchange with Rafe Bartholomew, who suggested the title: “Giving credit where credit is Tiu.” Rafe’s book on Philippine basketball, “Pacific Rims” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.)


• Is Jayvee Casio the Franz Pumaren to Mark Barroca’s Hector Calma? And is this girl the Christine Jacob in this analogy? Does that make JR Cawaling the Elmer Reyes of this team? One thing I’m sure of: Magi Sison is definitely not the next Yves Dignadice.


• As Bill Simmons would say, the turd in the punch bowl is definitely Jamal Sampson, who has reportedly been kicked off the team. I thought it would be funny to go back and read Quinito Henson’s series of stories building up Sampson’s credentials before joining Gilas. And you know what? They’re fucking HILARIOUS.

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.

Here’s favorite line from all of Quinito’s articles about the CJ Giles saga: “The final straw was when he invited his youthful teammates to his apartment for a drinking session that lasted until the wee hours. Eala pulled the plug before Giles made things worse for the team with his negative influence.”

I just love how Quinito makes it out like Giles had physically forced the little angels of Smart Gilas to go get drunk with him. What are they, 13?

It’s silly, because the Gilas members are well-educated young men who have been playing competitive basketball their whole lives. I imagine that these guys, the best and the brightest of Philippine college basketball, would be able to say no to too much drinking, no matter how persuasive their import could be, right?

Oh, but since Giles is out of the team and of the country, it’s all right to pile on the guy now.

(I guess this is the best time as any to share this image sent in by a reader showing the evil Giles forcing his teammates to go out drinking with him.)



It’s funny, but, deserved or not, it’s such a predictable reaction from a lot of sportswriters whenever an import loses his cool in a game, or is reported to party too hard off the court. As Rafe Bartholomew once joked in a previous discussion on this blog: “I'm pretty sure they teach the anti-import article/column in the first week of Pinoy Sports Writer Academy.”

(True enough, Quinito handles an annual sports writing workshop at UST’s national journalism fellowship. But I digress.)

In that same discussion, I mentioned how I suspect that the attitude towards imports is only emblematic another problem in Philippine society: racism. In Philippine basketball, racism, or at the very least, lack of sensitivity towards racial matters, manifests itself when dealing with imports.

Consider, for example, how coaches, team managers, and writers talk about imports in the same manner that Americans talk about used cars; an unsatisfactory reinforcement, just like a defective car, is called a lemon. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the history of African slaves in America would cringe at the way these African-American athletes are objectified.

Last year, after Barack Obama won the US elections, Howie Severino opened a can of worms with an entry in his blog about racism by Filipinos in the United States. He cited a story from the Asian Journal Online, a Filipino-American news paper, which detailed the racist behavior of some of the leaders of the Filipino community in the United States. I couldn’t find the original article, but examples are dime-a-dozen on the Internet. Francis Acero, a lawyer and a writer, blogged in painful detail about the ugly attitudes of his own family members who are living in the States towards Obama, and how these attitudes are exacerbated by their American experience:

These folks of mine are Catholic, financially stable, and pseudo-white. They are also the most racist people I know (next to the Chinese back here who won’t let their children marry someone of another race unless they were white or loaded with cash). Because they live in Southern California, my folks have come to see the worst of ghetto/gangsta culture in the face. They survived the worst of the LA riots and other instances of black violence. Because of that experience and their general experience handling sassy black characters (no other way to describe their encounters), my folks have come to the conclusion that black Americans are the worst characters on the planet.

Howie, meanwhile, goes back to the root of the problem: “Filipino racism of course is rooted in an inferiority complex we inherited from being treated like inferiors by pale Spaniards for four centuries. Yet one would expect educated Filipinos to overcome this weakness and not act like the least educated white Americans.”

Rafe then posted a thoughtful reply on his blog about the matter:

It never surprised me that racial attitudes in the Philippines were a bit behind those in the U.S., since the Philippines has a much different racial history. Both countries have their baggage, but the States has to deal with the legacy of slavery, which is where racism against African-Americans comes from. There are relatively so few black immigrants or half-black Filipinos that it's not a surprise that the Philippines hasn't had to come to terms with that kind of racism.

You definitely see it in basketball, where imports are lauded as athletes but viewed with a sharp-edged paternalism, where teams spy on their black American players to make sure they aren't running wild like the O.G. Black Superman, Billy Ray Bates. When imports are in public, people try to touch their hair or ask why it's so curly, ignorant racism that most players graciously ignore. It's like because most Pinoys see relatively few black people, they've never had to update their dated, racist attitudes about them.

It's interesting that Howie Severino framed his blog in terms of Filipino-Americans, because of the generational divide in that group, where many older Fil-Ams exhibit the kind of racism Howie wrote about, but younger Fil-Ams identify with American youth culture, so much of which comes from black trendsetters. Plus, if they play basketball, their idols are black NBA players, and their teammates are probably black, too. I've heard young Fil-Ams say, sometimes with pride and sometimes with annoyance, that they're known as the blackest of the Asians, i.e. they're good at breakdancing, basketball, DJing, etc. It's a generational dichotomy that somebody who's done some real research will have to parse out better than I have here.

Of course, this issue is too big for this blog, or any online discussion, to tackle completely. For further reading, I’ve heard good things about the book “Pareng Barack: Filipinos in Obama’s America” by Filipino-American journalist Benjamin Pimentel. I would also recommend the work of Pulitzer-Prize winner Alex Tizon, another Filipino-American (and incidentally a colleague at my day job), about his visits to the homeland.

To end this post on a more hopeful note, research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that exposure to the Internet and online social networks can improve the comfort level with people of another race. Research has also shown that Filipinos are the most prolific users of social networks on the Internet.