Gilas Pilipinas is embracing both the pros and cons of a packed 2022 schedule made even more congested by the rescheduling of the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup originally slated in Jakarta, Indonesia this month.
Head coach and program director Tab Baldwin said there are great benefits to working around a calendar year now loaded with four major international tournaments after the world basketball body decided last month to move the continental showpiece to July 2022.
"More time to prepare for us is not a bad thing. We need practice more than we need games, but we need games as well, and we need to keep these players motivated. What it really does is puts an extremely heavy schedule into 2022," Baldwin remarked Saturday on the Power & Play radio show hosted by former PBA commissioner Noli Eala.
"We have a very full schedule, which is exciting, but it also means that we've got a lot of work to do to get prepared for that. But it's a great way to head into 2023, which is the World Cup year. We're going to get a lot of information, a lot of preparation. And it's exactly what we need. So we're looking forward to it," he continued.
Aside from the rescheduled Asia Cup, Gilas will also see action in the FIBA World Cup qualifying windows, the Asian Games and the Southeast Asian Games.
The first window of the 2023 Basketball World Cup to be hosted by the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia will run from November 22 to 30 this year. Five more windows are scheduled on February 21 to March 1, 2022; June 27 to July 5, 2022; August 22 to 30, 2022; November 7 to 15, 2022; and February 20 to 28, 2023.
The 2022 Asian Games will run from September 10 to 25 in Hangzhou, China, while the 31st Southeast Asian Games to be hosted in Hanoi, Vietnam -- and originally set from November 21 to December this year -- has yet to have a definite date next year.
In the meantime, Gilas officials will have their hands full working to develop the players in the existing pool and determining the best talents to be fielded in the World Cup.
The ideal hope for Baldwin is that Gilas will field more or less the same roster for all four tournaments in preparation for 2023, but he said also recognizes the fact that other priorities -- like the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) possibly gunning for the country's first Asian Games gold medal in basketball since 1962 -- could prevent that from happening.
"Honestly, that discussion hasn't taken place, so there hasn't been a final decision and I don't think I'm the final arbiter on that, although I hope I have input," Baldwin said about Gilas' roster for 2022. "But from my perspective, it makes sense to use the entire schedule to continue to develop the team that we expect to put into the 2023 World Cup. And that that will be my hope."
"But if somebody, of course, makes a solid argument for a different approach -- let's say that the bosses and everybody say they are very determined to win a gold at the Asian Games, so they want to use more veteran players -- if that's the goal, then we will adjust and we will take into consideration all of that and make our decisions based on that."
Baldwin on Saturday also doubled down on his past comments about a possible roster construction for 2023 and said anyone who aspires to join Gilas' campaign in the World Cup will have to train with the national team for a significant amount of time.
The American-Kiwi coach cited the cases of Thirdy Ravena, Dave Ildefonso, Matt Nieto and Rey Suerte, who all got off to slow starts in Gilas' fourth-place finish in the King Abdullah Cup in Jordan last month.
Ravena did not have a lot of time preparing with the national team ahead of the tournament owing to his commitments with San-En NeoPhoenix in the Japanese B.League, while Suerte (ankle sprain), Ildefonso (bone bruise) and Nieto (broken hand) dealt with various injuries that kept them off rosters in both the third and final window of the FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers in Clark back in June and the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Serbia early July.
"Those four guys only really had four and a half days of preparation in the very short bubble we had before we left (for Jordan). And it was evident, especially for Matt and for Thirdy, who hadn't had much preparation at all with the team. They were really out of sync," he noted.
"And I just think it highlights the fact of what I've been saying: if we want to bring new players in, they need to have a considerable amount of time with the team. Dave and Rey weren't away as Matt and Thirdy were, and they probably integrated themselves a little bit better. But by the end of the tournament, we were seeing improvements from Matt and Thirdy. At the beginning of the tournament, they didn't look good. And they knew that," Baldwin continued.
Baldwin said discussions are always "ongoing" with the PBA in terms of adding professionals to the roster, but he made clear that his stance about the requisite prep time has not changed.
"That's just part of the process. Time together is critical. And anybody that thinks we can just bring star players in at the last minute and expect that to be in addition to the team, they're wrong. They will be a subtraction to the team. I don't care how good those players are. They may be a star for the team, but they won't actually help the team perform better as a team," commented Baldwin.
"As far as the PBA, I think it's just an ongoing conversation, and I don't think the particulars around that discussion have changed. We would certainly love the involvement of players that we would like to have in our environment, but it does come with the conditions of a significant amount of training time," he closed.