The third jewel of the PBA’s 40th Season, the Governors’ Cup, got off the ground without much fanfare last Tuesday with six of the 12 teams fielding Asian imports as part of the league’s thrust in going global.

The league’s board of governors approved, sometime last year in Korea during its annual planning session, the option for teams to add an Asian import who stands no more than 6-foot-3 in height to reinforce the squad together with an American reinforcement also with different height limits.

This has drawn mixed reactions as far as some of the coaches and players are concerned. Even the fans don’t like it.

The question here is: Does the PBA need them? Does it help Philippine basketball in general? And lastly, do adding Asian imports serve the league’s thrust in going global?

The league has been around for the last 40 years, surviving all sorts of trials that included the reduction of the field to as low as six teams during the late 1970s, the coming and going of the “Fil-Shams” that had the league losing credibility, the arrival of the Metropolitan Basketball Association, among others.

Patrick Gregorio, currently the chairman of the board, came up with the idea of signing Asian imports to add flavor to the games.

Usually, the practice in the board is that the team representatives agree to the wishes of the chairman so that he could plot which direction the league will be taking during his term.

But does the PBA need these players?

I don’t think so.

The Philippines tried, and was successful, in getting back to the World Cup stage last year, thanks to Gregorio’s boss, Manny V. Pangilinan, who bankrolls the Gilas Pilipinas program.

Answer this: How do you get back to the World Cup stage if you are an Asian country?

Gilas finished second to mighty Iran in the Fiba-Asia Championship in August of 2013 in Manila, turning back Korea in the Final Four in one of the most gut-wrenching games of the tournament.

So, in saying that we are No. 2 in the region, even with Marcus Douthit reinforcing that squad, is it not also safe to say that our players – individually – are the second-best in Asia?

The PBA doesn’t need the Asian imports because 6-foot-3 players cannot attract crowds the way 6-foot-3 Americans, the flamboyant ones, can do.

Some examples of past imports who are of that height were Tony Harris, Kenny Redfield, Donnie Ray Koonce, Rob Williams, Carlos Briggs, Wes Matthews and the list can go on and on.

The great Asian players are those who are more than 6-foot-3 in height, and even then, the 7-foot-2 Hamed Hadadi of Iran will not be able to fill the venues because he is such a methodical player, a calculating center, who wastes no effort in getting things done.

Filipino fans want that flashy ones, the playground types who run opponents to the ground with ankle-breaking cross-overs, electrifying dunks and fancy passes.

Filipino fans don’t like the jump-shooting kind like the Koreans, the Taiwanese, the Chinese, the Syrians, the Mongolians and whomever.

The only basketball players in Asia that are flashy yet effective – and are not 7-footers – are the Filipinos. So tell me, for what do we need those Asian imports for.

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There’s one Asian player who is exciting as some of the Americans that came to our shores before, and his name in Nikkha Bahrami of Iran.

Bahrami is a sweet-shooting, sleek-penetrating, crafty-passing and tenacious-defending swingman who has helped Iran maintain supremacy in the region.

It’s his style that Filipinos love.

It is from Bahrami where the Filipino player could learn something from, it is Bahrami whom the Filipinos could eventually succeed in stopping when important international tournaments come in the future.

But he is 6-foot-6, and that disqualifies him from playing here.

Aside from Hadadi, Gilas also failed to stop Bahrami from dominating in the Fiba-Asia. Bahrami also did the most damage on the Philippines in the Stankovic Cup in 2012 in Japan.

The Philippines’ only success against the Iranians came in the 2012 Jones Cup in Taipei, where Gabe Norwood held Bahrami to three first half points only for the great Iranian swingman to erupt for 26 in the second half of a one-point victory by the Filipinos on the way to the title.

After that sterling first half defensive effort by Norwood, the Filipinos have never come close to holding Bahrami down.

In bringing Asian imports to the PBA, these players are getting, first hand, how the game is played in this part of the world.

These Asian players, in turn, are the ones who get to learn how to stop the great Filipino players because they are now playing against them during the whole conference.

So where does that serve the PBA and the national team program?

The ploy, in my opinion, is counter-productive as far as going global is concerned.

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Going global means going global, like in no restrictions. Like in going anywhere to pick an import as long as he comes from the Planet Earth.

Restricting the PBA teams from signing 6-foot-3 imports coming only from Asia means that the PBA is going “Asian.”

There are great players coming from Europe, from Africa and even Australia who can teach the Filipino player a thing or two on how to play the game and even of players coming from those continents get to learn the PBA brand of play, we wouldn’t have to contend against them when we try to truly “go global” and qualify for another World Cup stint.

Another thing, 6-foot-3 Asians only take jobs of other Filipino cagers away.

That being said, the development of homegrown players just get hampered even more as the Filipino is being relegated to the sidelines because the Asian players should be used more for he is being paid more.

It’s the borderline local players who are taking the hit on this one. Truly a counter-productive move by the board.