Several PBA Stars and the PBA gave up on our 2019 FIBA World Cup bid, right?

(c) PBA Media Bureau

Do you remember the 2014 FIBA World Cup?

We played Greece, Croatia, Argentina, Senegal and Puerto Rico.

Yes, if you remember, we played against Giannis Antetokounmpo and he was not yet the MVP-level player that he is today. Can you still recall the poster dunk of Gabe Norwood on Luis Scola? That game against Argentina was the highlight of that event for the Philippines because we almost did an upset thanks to the hot hands of Jimmy Alapag!

During that week of play, the entire country stopped and embraced our national team. Yes, we do not have what it takes to move past the group stages but the fighting heart of Filipinos helped as appreciate the fight that our troops did there.

Unfortunately, that seems to be unappreciated. Unfortunately, the upcoming 2019 FIBA World Cup feels like not a FIBA World Cup.

And the worst of all, even the players themselves did not appreciate the prestige of the upcoming competition. Why should we care about the upcoming FIBA World Cup if the players themselves can come up with different reasons to avoid not representing our country?

Majority of the members of our Gilas pool will travel to Spain for a 10-days training camp. The keyword in that sentence is 'majority'. Why? Because not all of them will be there.

Why?

Because some of them are playing in the 2019 PBA Commissioner's Cup Finals. So, Troy Rosario, RR Pogoy, Junemar Fajardo, Christian Standhardinger and Marcio Lassiter will not be joining them in Spain.

At least, they will only miss the preparation. At least, they will still be there during the competition. But, isn't it that preparation is actually more important than the competition itself?

Maybe, this is really the best set-up. Maybe, we should just accept that we will go to the 2019 FIBA World Cup to participate and not actually to compete.