Finding a win-win formula for PBA and SBP

THE PHILIPPINE Basketball Association and the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas are now trying to come up with a formula that would enable the country to continue to come up with a respectable National Five now that the Gilas Pilipinas Cadet program has been revived.
With the country’s best amateurs being lured into the Cadet program, the PBA is facing the possibility of having a very shallow pool of talents for the coming Rookie Draft, something that definitely doesn’t sit well with the powers-that-be in the league.
The likes of former UAAP MVPs Keifer Ravena and Bobby Ray Parks and Kevin Ferrer and Mac Belo are being lured into long-term contracts by the SBP just to be part of the Cadet pool, which will be developed to represent the Philippines — along with a naturalized player, of course — in the hectic qualifying tournament for the 2019 Fiba World Cup in China.
Alarmed was the word that many papers used as the PBA’s reaction to this, as the coming Rookie Draft will certainly not have the blue-chip names the teams have been waiting for to rebuild or even make their strong teams stronger.
Now the PBA and the SBP are drawing up plans, or formulas, in order to make these players available for the Draft.
Alaska team owner Wilfred Uytengsu had said on Wednesday that the SBP should allow these players to declare themselves for the Draft, but would not be playing in the PBA until after the Gilas Cadet program releases them.
These players, Uytengsu said in his suggestion, will be earning from their mother PBA teams — even while not playing — and at the same time, be making a living playing for the National program.
Is that a win-win solution in the eyes of the basketball fan?
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We understand that the PBA exists to give quality sports entertainment to this hoops-crazed nation, to be able to able to come up with different dish every year for the fans to partake in, so to speak.
New faces are necessary to be able to keep fan-interest at a high, otherwise, it would be like watching replays of one TV program over and over again.
But does fulfilling these objectives prove healthy for the National Team?
Definitely not.
The PBA has been around for more than 40 years and has established itself as a viable commercial vehicle for the teams and the products they represent.
From beer to gin, hotdogs to corned beef, even real estate and paying toll to pass a long stretch of real estate, the PBA has served its purpose as far as advertising its products is concerned.
And where has the National Team been in all of those 40 years?
Save for the past few years, the international cage program of the country has been in the doldrums.
Thanks in huge part to Manny V. Pangilinan, who incidentally owns three PBA teams, the Philippine Five is enjoying a revitalized international existence and is now the 28th-ranked team in the world.
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I hope the PBA realizes that it will enjoy a boom in crowd attendance and TV ratings if the country has a solid national team program.
The league was so popular during the Crispa-Toyota days because the country had just come from dominating the Asian region before the PBA was born.
Toyota and Crispa came up with squads that were virtually the Philippine Teams at that time, having all the best talents in the land because they were the companies that could afford to pay the players.
When pro players were allowed to represent countries internationally starting in 1990, and the Philippines failed to win the Asian championship, the PBA suffered dips in attendance and TV ratings.
Following in the PBA has waned through these years because there is too much basketball around.
When the UAAP and NCAA seasons are being played, PBA games take a backseat a lot of times because college basketball is just too good to pass up.
College basketball in the midst of a PBA season is the different dish that most fans want. Fans can associate themselves better with college basketball and their players because fans did go to school and are forever attached to their alma maters.
So if the formula of having fans associated with schools is working for the UAAP and the NCAA, why can’t the PBA associate its fans with players who represent the PBA teams in the National Five?
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This corner believes that a win-win solution is to allow the Cadet program to go on with the prized amateurs whom Gilas is eyeing to not declare in the Draft.
The players concerned will be compensated very well in the Cadet program to begin with, and they don’t need the distraction of preparing for a pro career in the future.
If the Cadet program will provide them with a more-than-sustainable lifestyle, then let these amateurs stay as members of the National team and let them fight for flag and country before playing commercially.
The PBA has 12 teams at the moment and more than a hundred players combined. Some of them are on the active list while a handful are on the reserved list.
Some of these teams have superstars in the reserved list and are benching potential blue-chip players because they retain such star-studded rosters.
What the PBA needs to do is to strike a balance of power among all the teams, to police its ranks and prevent the teams with lots of money from taking all the best players and benching others who are worthy of playing.
If the PBA can do this, there will be parity in the league, hence, games worth watching.
And the PBA can leave the National team alone and have this country represented well internationally.