(Part 4/6) There is nothing textbook about the formation of a national team. Each and every one has its one unique peculiarities, characters, and different sets of circumstances that add to the drama.
For the Smart Gilas Pilipinas National Team, well, even if patterned after the fabled Northern Consolidated Cement team of the 1980’s, there’s no template for it.
After Jakarta, the team made a triumphant return to the country. But the college basketball season was on and with only four players stayed behind to continue to train – Chris Tiu, Jayvee Casio, Mac Baracael, and Jason Ballesteros – as they had finished their schooling. The rest went back to their college teams while CJ Giles tried out for the Orlando Magic’s roster. In that time, Chris Lutz flew in for two weeks to work out and scrimmage with the team. Along with former UST Tiger Emerson Oreta who worked out with Gilas, they played a steady steam of exhibition matches and surprisingly did well beating a number of pro teams that had their full complement of players.
On the international front, national team duties were temporarily taken over by the Powerade team of all-pros that would compete in SEABA and FIBA Asia Men’s Basketball Championship in Tianjin, China.
The other collegiate members of Gilas, for five months, ran other systems and were used rather differently and by the time of their re-entry into the national squad, there was difficulty in assimilating oneself again. Never was this more evident than with Dylan Ababou who played the four-spot with UST (since they lacked a deep bench) and won the UAAP Most Valuable Award at that. With his return to the nationals, he looked lost and out of sync. He had bulked up in a different way that made him slower.
The team meanwhile picked up Japeth Aguilar who stirred a hornet’s nest when he was drafted number one over-all by the PBA yet refused to sign a contract with Burger King, the team that drafted him. Aguilar had played for Powerade and its coach Yeng Guiao who once mentored the 6’11” player’s father, Peter, when he was playing for Swift’s in the PABL.
Aguilar left the Ateneo Blue Eagles after two years to play for Western Kentucky in the US NCAA. There was hope that he could be the first pure Filipino to play in the NBA but injuries kept him from getting valuable playing time and as a result, with not many opportunities, he returned to the Philippines and to join Powerade in particular.
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