I rushed to the Ninoy Aquino Stadium tonight after a long day of work in the field just in time for the tipoff of Smart Gilas versus the Jordan national team. Gilas actually played well in the first half, taking a first quarter lead and keeping in step with the taller Jordanians at halftime.

But Jordan, the bronze medal winner at last year’s Fiba-Asia championship, stepped up its attack in the third quarter, taking a 58-50 lead at the end of the period. They turned the game into a laugher in the fourth quarter, using a 15-4 run to take a 19-point lead before Gilas rallied to make the score respectable, 83-75.

Like most of the other fans in the stadium, I ended up drenched after the game, adding insult to injury. It always sucks to watch a team with the words “Pilipinas” across the chest losing.

Some thoughts on the game:

• Marcus Douthit twisted his ankle in the second quarter, which could have affected his performance, even after he returned later. But my first impression is that he’s solid, but not as talented or explosive as CJ Giles.


• Gilas’ best five was its small-ball lineup with Jayvee Casio, Chris Tiu, Marcio Lassiter, Mac Baracael, and Greg Slaughter after Douthit went down. Lassiter, Baracael, and Casio hit several three-pointers to keep Gilas in the game.


• Slaughter was especially impressive. He wasn’t exactly smooth, but he played solid man-to-man and help defense, and ran the floor well. He even had a two-handed follow-up dunk on the break.


• On the flip side, I’m worried about the rest of the guys in the rotation. Chris Lutz looks like he hasn’t adjusted to the system yet, while Mark Barroca, Dylan Ababou, and Japeth Aguilar looked very tentative, like they were worried about being yanked from the game by Coach Rajko Toroman if they missed a shot or were late on a defensive rotation. It’s like they’re constantly looking over their shoulder to see if someone’s going to the scorer’s table to check in for them.


• Actually, Aguilar deserves his own bullet point. His confidence is just completely shattered, and Toroman looks like he’s much, much, much more comfortable having the 6’3” Baracael out there at power forward instead of the 6’10” Aguilar. With seconds to go before the end of the third quarter, Toroman took out Aguilar, and the coach started screaming at the player’s face, ignoring the rest of the action until the buzzer sounded. Japeth didn’t even look like he was listening anymore, just walking to the very end of the bench. He never returned, as Toroman went with the twin tower combination of Douthit and Slaughter.
  
  The Gilas management might want to consider shipping Aguilar out of the team, perhaps to Talk N Text as replacement for Kelly Williams. Maybe, with nurturing from Chot Reyes and Norman Black, Aguilar’s confidence can be nursed back to health and his immense potential could still be salvaged.


• Gilas needs to improve its zone offense; Jordan went on its big run by playing a 2-3 zone.


• If Williams and Ryan Reyes end up joining Smart Gilas, they’d be taking the minutes of Aguilar and Barroca, ironically the two guys we all thought would be carrying the team last year.


• Near the end of the game, Gilas got a steal and passed ahead to Jayvee Casio, who muffed a fastbreak floater in the lane against Rasheim Wright. Toroman got in his face and started screaming about Casio’s miss, gesturing wildly for a while about how Casio should have done it.
  
  There are two ways to look at this sequence. One is that Coach Rajko, ever the perfectionist, expects only the very best from his players. The other is that, well, that was a tough shot for Casio, and Toroman was being kind of a dick.


• If Jordan beats the Dongguan Leopards tomorrow, which they should, Gilas would have another shot at Jordan on Sunday.

So the rumors are true: Greg Slaughter, the 6’11” star center of the University of Visayas Green Lancers, is now redshirting for the Ateneo Blue Eagles to be eligible for the 2011 UAAP basketball tournament, Quinito Henson reports in his Philippine Star column. While Quinito downplays Slaughter’s transfer to Katipunan, instead playing up the center’s improvement while training with the Smart Gilas program, the story may have far-reaching implications.

Slaughter first flew to Manila to train with Gilas, a team bankrolled by SBP chairman Manny Pangilinan, who’s also the top patron of the Blue Eagles. It couldn’t have been coincidence that Slaughter chooses to transfer to the same school sponsored by his Gilas principal. Pangilinan pours huge money into Ateneo sports – “between P10 million to P12 million” a year, according to one Inquirer report – and it’s not hard to imagine him or his minions exerting influence on the SBP to steer Slaughter into making the “correct” decision.

I don’t begrudge Slaughter for this. He’s a young man with tremendous potential, so best of luck to him. He probably would develop a lot under the tutelage of Eagles coach Norman Black, a renowned teacher of big men, plus he could spend more time with Gilas. And whatever UV has to offer can probably be trumped by an Ateneo program that’s well-funded – so well-funded, in fact, that the school’s Board of Trustees is willing to overlook certain embarrassing behavior just to keep the money rolling in.

But while the brain trust of UV basketball composed of coaches Boy Cabahug and Al Solis will probably be able to buck the loss of Slaughter and remain competitive, this leaves a terrible taste in the mouth. Actually, it reminds me of the Japeth Aguilar saga. Somehow, I can’t help but get the impression that the SBP, as it exists right now, is not here to look out for the best interests of the whole Philippine basketball community as much as to make sure that each of MVP’s teams – whether it be Gilas, Ateneo, Talk N Text, or even San Beda – always comes out on top.

Now this whole incident with Slaughter could perhaps explain why the University of the East and the University of Cebu are so reluctant to allow their respective stars, Paul Lee and June Mar Fajardo, to join Smart Gilas.

After a crazy quarterfinal round, the stage is set for the PBA Philippine Cup final four. The cast features 3 teams that belong to the San Miguel Corporation, which again reinforces perceptions by the league’s critics that the PBA is an SMC league. Some even say that the PBA is set up so that SMC teams would always end up on the winning end of most tournaments.

The grand conspiracy argument doesn’t hold much water. If it were true, there’s no way Sta. Lucia would have won the 2008 Philippine Cup over Purefoods in a close seven-game series wherein James Yap was suspended for one game for the same flagrant 2 penalty called on Ranidel de Ocampo last Friday. Imagine David Stern suspending Kobe Bryant on an iffy call in an NBA finals series against a team like the Milwaukee Bucks.

That doesn’t mean to say that SMC teams do not have an advantage. The PBA landscape today gives the rich teams a leg up when it comes to acquiring talent, and each of the SMC teams have taken advantage to build up its arsenal.

By my count, Ginebra, Purefoods, and San Miguel have acquired a total of 19 players through lopsided trades over the past 5 PBA seasons. The trend started prior to the 2006-07 season, when Ginebra and San Miguel ransacked the roster of erstwhile sister team Coca-Cola just before the corporation let go of the franchise. Over the next several years, each SMC team found more willing partners in Red Bull and Air 21 who would let go of their star players for a song.

	Acquired by	From	Season	Notes
Marc Pingris	Purefoods	Air 21	2005-06	Traded to San Miguel for Enrico Villanueva in 2008, acquired back by Purefoods in 2009
Rudy Hatfield	Ginebra	Coke	2006-07	Went off the deep end after leading Ginebra to a Philippine Cup championship
Billy Mamaril	Ginebra	Coke	2006-07
Rafi Reavis	Ginebra	Coke	2006-07	Traded to Purefoods in 2009
Ronald Tubid	Ginebra	Air 21	2006-07
Lordy Tugade	San Miguel	Red Bull	2006-07
Enrico Villanueva	San Miguel	Red Bull	2007-08	Traded to Purefoods in 2008, traded to Ginebra in 2009
Larry Fonacier	San Miguel	Red Bull	2007-08	Traded to Alaska in 2008
Junthy Valenzuela	Ginebra	Red Bull	2007-08
Mick Pennisi	San Miguel	Red Bull	2008-09
Rich Alvarez	Purefoods	Red Bull	2008-09	Traded to Ginebra in 2009
Cyrus Baguio	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
JC Intal	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Doug Kramer	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Homer Se	Ginebra	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Don Allado	Purefoods	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Celino Cruz	Purefoods	Air 21/BK	2008-09	Traded to Ginebra in 2009
KG Canaleta	Purefoods	Air 21/BK	2008-09
Arwind Santos	San Miguel	Air 21/BK	2009-10

The data does not reflect the indirect benefits of one SMC team acquiring new star players to its sister teams. For example, San Miguel benefitted when Ginebra acquired Hatfield, Mamaril, and Reavis from Coke, because it opened the door for the Beermen to trade for Ginebra’s Rommel Adducul, who had become expendable. When San Miguel acquired Villanueva, Adducul was shipped to Purefoods. Pingris found his way back to Purefoods from San Miguel this season after the arrival of Santos to the Beermen’s camp.

I also did not include in the table the first round draft picks acquired by the Beermen from Coke during the ransacking. San Miguel used the second overall pick in 2007 to draft Samigue Eman, and the third pick in the 2008 draft to trade for Jay Washington. These were non-trivial assets.

Of course, it’s not just the SMC teams doing this. Talk N Text has been just as brazen about stockpiling talent over the past several years. Another rich franchise, Coca-Cola, seems to be going in that direction.

Meanwhile, the Photokina (Red Bull/Barako Bull) and Lina (Air 21/Burger King) franchises have had no scruples about letting their players go to the highest bidders. Sta. Lucia, a franchise beset by financial difficulty, might be going down the same path. In the PBA board, only Alaska and Rain or Shine might be inclined to pursue changes to the system, and even then they are vastly outnumbered.

There hasn’t been nearly enough outrage from the fans. I tried to incite outrage when Burger King sold off Santos to San Miguel, but it was met by general apathy. The Filipino basketball fan’s mindset is rarely about playing fair, and mostly about getting an advantage at any cost. It runs true from college basketball – seriously, check out the message board discussions on high school prospects by fans of elite schools – up to the pros. Hell, think about how Smart Gilas fans wanted Japeth Aguilar on the team, at any cost, relationships be damned.

We want our teams to cut every corner to get the best players. Should it come as any surprise when they do exactly that?

Like I said a few posts back, I welcome any insight about the Smart Gilas squad, given that a lot of people really care about the promising team. A Smart Gilas insider (I know who he is, but for obvious reasons couldn’t disclose the identity) left a very interesting comment on my last post about the team. I’m republishing the most interesting parts of his comment here for more people to see:

Mac Baracael has been playing at the four position most of the time and he has been way more effective there when compared to Japeth. Japeth hasn't been rebounding too well and has been making good decisions. Plus he has not been playing good defense.

As for the PBA players, no coach Raijko is not interested in Asi at all. He was simply using him as a measure for the size that he needs. the only PBA player that he really wants (which i think finally came out publicly today) is kelly williams because he would be a perfect fit for the 4 position because of his rebounding and shooting.

As for the guards, Toroman is completely happy with all of them and he is just waiting for Lutz to come then his lineup for guards will be complete. I know a lot of people dont like Tiu, but when he averages the most minutes on the team, that says alot for a guy who is so short. Watching their games, it would seem that it is his fault when the guards score but truth is, he does everything coach Raijko asks him to on defense. he follows their defensive philosophy to the letter and often enough it is due to his teammates' mistakes in following their help side rules on defense that lead his man to score. He is just the leader of the team and sticks his team together. A true role player indeed.

Baracael has been great and Jvee Casio has been very good too. Barroca is actually not playing so well anymore and is getting berated at times for not passing the ball and setting the plays up properly.