Let me rave about the positives.
First of all, we are in a time when it feels like our national basketball team sucks because of back-to-back defeats against European nations. And while I know that the team lacks a dedicated playmaker, even if Tim Cone tries to make Dwight Ramos, Chris Newsome, and CJ Perez into such, the team is still competitive.
That said, we are entering the Olympic Qualifiers with two consecutive defeats.
After losing to Turkey, 84 to 73, Gilas Pilipinas lost to Poland, 82 to 80. Poland will play in Valencia, Spain. Poland is in Group B alongside Finland and The Bahamas, and they will meet with the last two standing in Group A consisting of host Spain, Angola, and Lebanon. On the other hand, Turkey is not part of the Qualifying Tournament and is preparing for the 2025 FIBA World Cup. Turkey got batched with Latvia, Serbia, Greece, Belgium, and Great Britain and ended up tied for fourth. Latvia topped their group and incidentally, they are one of the hurdles Gilas Pilipinas must face in the preliminary rounds alongside Georgia.
A win against one of these teams will possibly send Gilas to the next round. I know it's a tough task, but the good thing about these losses is that we know that we can beat these teams. Latvia is currently number 6 in the FIBA World Rankings and Georgia is number 23. The Philippines is 37th in the world, and we just lost a couple of tune-up games against number 15 Poland, and number 24 Turkey. Gilas is ranked eighth in our zone, behind Australia (5,) New Zealand (21,) Japan (26,) Iran (27,) Lebanon (28,) China (29,) and Jordan (32.) That said, our team has a huge upside because it's not like the core of our team is PBA-dependent. Dwight Ramos, Carl Tamayo, Kevin Quiambao, Mason Amos, and Kai Sotto are certified international game veterans, and they are all under 26 years old as of the moment.
By all accounts, this is important, because most of the players applying for the PBA Draft are of the same age and even older if you think about it.
I really hope we can change a lot of things in the PBA to coincide with what we are doing on the international scene. Our national team has evolved. Gone are the days when we see China and Korea as our biggest hurdles, and Thailand as our toughest SEA Games problem. Yes, they are still problems, but we are also trying to snag wins against the top Europeans teams. The mere fact that we got to the qualifying tournament is a positive alone, and this gives our national team an extra shot of chemistry that the team seriously needs to retain our FIBA World Cup spot.
That said, the road to Paris may be hell for Gilas Pilipinas, but it's doable.
So let's just trust our Gilas boys to give us something to cheer about.