On the heels of a historic run to an Asian Games men's 5x5 basketball gold medal -- the Philippines' first in 61 years -- the Gilas Pilipinas program finds itself at a crossroads.
Now that the euphoria is slowly dying down, the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) must now chart the next path of Gilas as it attempts to ride the momentum of the Asiad victory.
Luckily, 2024 doesn't figure to be a busy year. There are no Southeast Asian Games, Asian Games or FIBA World Cup qualifiers to consider.
The SBP, therefore, has some time on its side.
The next important tournament for the men's national team is the first window of the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers slated in February. Gilas is in Group B with Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei and New Zealand and will face the first two of those teams on Feb. 22 and Feb. 25.
After that, there's the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in July.
Frankly, Philippines has little chance of making it out of this tournament, since only the top team in their group will book a ticket to Paris. But it's still important to send a competitive team.
Given these scenarios, how does Gilas move forward? To answer that, there are several factors to consider.
PBA's call-out
It was a bit strange to see the PBA top brass publicly challenge the SBP to come up with a national team program during a press conference on Monday, especially since everyone was still basking in the glow of the gold medal achievement.
Considering the long-standing partnership between the two organizations, the move felt a bit like a WWE storyline -- where a member of a successful tag team tells his partner to get his act together or else.
But the PBA isn't exactly wrong.
The league has time and again adjusted its schedule to accommodate the different tournaments, and even struck off one whole conference this coming season because of the World Cup and Asian Games. The pro league's message during the press conference was clear: you can't keep on depending on us all the time.
Also, there actually is a need for a clearer vision from the SBP.
With a light schedule in the coming months, now is the perfect time to recalibrate and meet with all the major basketball stakeholders to align everyone's schedules and craft a new program going forward.
Who calls the shots?
Before anything else, Gilas needs a new coach.
Whether the appointment is made before or after any hypothetical basketball summit is immaterial at this point, but it would be good for the SBP to start soliciting applications as early as now.
Popular demand aside, it's highly unlikely that Tim Cone will return to the Gilas bench.
During the press conference, Barangay Ginebra team governor Alfrancis Chua said that Cone had told him he was eager to return to the Kings and start preparing for the Commissioner's Cup.
Simultaneously holding the two most high-profile jobs in Philippine basketball would simply be too taxing for any coach, including Cone. And it is unlikely he will choose the Gilas gig over what he's built at Ginebra.
Despite what Chot Reyes went through over the past year, the Philippines coaching job will always be one of the most attractive in the region.
It pays well, the basketball culture is among the strongest in the world, and there's plenty of talent to develop. The SBP should have little trouble attracting several high-quality candidates both local and foreign.
But since the program will be rebooting anyway, it might be a good time to bring in a foreign voice, preferably European. Six of the top eight countries in the recent World Cup were from Europe, including the champion and runner-up.
Plus, PBA teams of late have shown more openness towards hiring a European coach to sit on the bench in whatever capacity.
Another Gilas pool?
To be fair to the SBP, it has repeatedly tried to lessen its dependence on the PBA.
Time and again, the federation has attempted to form a Gilas pool that would allow it to operate freely without relying too much on the PBA for manpower. While on paper this is an ideal approach, the actual execution has been less than ideal -- and each time the SBP has had to go back to the PBA and ask for help.
The first Gilas team was a pool of top amateur players reinforced by naturalized player Marcus Douthit and coached by Rajko Toroman.
That team stuck together for three years, but when it came to the big tournament -- the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship which was a qualifier for the 2012 London Olympics -- Gilas management in the end asked the PBA to lend four top players to beef up the squad that would eventually finish fourth.
Then there were the Gilas Cadets, a collection of 12 top amateur players who were distributed among the PBA's 12 teams in a "special Gilas draft" in 2016.
The idea was to allow the players to join the PBA but remain on call for national team duty. That also ultimately wasn't followed as the Gilas teams in the 2017 FIBA Asia Cup and SEA Games ended up being reinforced by other pros.
In 2019, the SBP launched "23 for '23" -- a list of 23 top young players who would supposedly form the pool for the 2023 World Cup.
In the end, four players from that pool -- Kai Sotto, AJ Edu, Dwight Ramos, and CJ Perez -- eventually made the final Gilas 12 for the World Cup, while two others -- Carl Tamayo and Thirdy Ravena -- were in the 21-man pool.
Tab Baldwin's pool in 2020 and 2021 was the most promising, but eventually many of the players also decided to turn pro either here or in Japan. The league held two consecutive Gilas drafts to keep some of Baldwin's boys in the Gilas pool but, once again, this was also abandoned.
With other Asian leagues actively recruiting young Filipino prospects, maintaining a pool of young talent is now very difficult.
For many of the next generation of basketball stars, playing abroad has become their top priority. The basketball landscape in Asia has changed, and keeping together an all-amateur team for a long period of time simply isn't feasible anymore.
The SBP could perhaps look to the blueprint executed by World Cup champions Germany, who picked a pool of players scattered all over the world and asked each of them for a three-year commitment. They're only in Year 2 of their program but it's already bore fruit.
Philippines now finds itself in a similar situation, with many top players now plying their trade abroad. But Germany has shown that, no matter where its players earn a living, it's possible to reach across borders and keep a competitive pool intact.
All it needs is full commitment from everyone. That is the new challenge for the SBP.