Philippine basketball

SBP chief pins blame on Tab Baldwin for Gilas Pilipinas’ recent struggles

Delfin Dioquino

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SBP chief pins blame on Tab Baldwin for Gilas Pilipinas’ recent struggles

STEP DOWN. Tab Baldwin led Gilas Pilipinas to promising results before his abrupt exit.

FIBA

'Honestly, the predicament we're in today is because of Tab (Baldwin),' says SBP president Al Panlilio

MANILA, Philippines – As far as Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) president Al Panlilio is concerned, Tab Baldwin is the root cause of Gilas Pilipinas’ recent struggles.

While fans continue to call for Chot Reyes’ head, Panlilio pinned the blame on Baldwin after the American-Kiwi mentor left the national team just before the start of its FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifiers campaign.

“Honestly, the predicament we’re in today is because of Tab,” Panlilio told SEAG Network.

“We started losing players, he did not want to coach the February window, so as a federation, we had to make decisions on how to move forward.”

Baldwin guided the Philippines to a sweep of its group in the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers, where it beat continental rival Korea twice.

A few weeks after, Gilas Pilipinas proved it can go toe-to-toe with powerhouse teams Serbia and Dominican Republic in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT).

But in a stunning turn of events in January, the SBP announced the appointment of Chot Reyes as national team head coach and program director after Baldwin “stepped down” from his posts.

“It was quite alarming for me because he was supposed to be the program director and the coach of the team. Suddenly, he said he is unable to coach. That is hard to deal with,” Panlilio said in a mix of Filipino and English.

Panlilio surmised that Baldwin left the program because of his slim chances to lead the Philippines to wins in the February window of the Asian Qualifiers, which the country hosted.

Since the OQT, a bunch of Gilas Pilipinas players pursued overseas careers, among them key cogs Dwight Ramos, Jordan Heading, Juan and Javi Gomez de Liaño, and Kobe Paras.

“I think he knew he had no team. Tab knew he had no team and had no chance of performing well after performing well in the FIBA Asia Cup qualifying, in fact even beating Korea twice in the bubble,” said Panlilio.

“But at the same time, he also had time to prepare for that. He had three months to prepare for that qualifier because everybody was in a bubble, he had time to train the team.”

With Reyes at the helm, the Philippines fell short of a 14th straight gold medal in the Southeast Asian Games and missed the Asia Cup quarterfinals for the first time in 15 years.

“It was a very difficult time for the SBP because we did not have players, the national coach at the time said he could not coach the February window and would rather focus on Ateneo, and we had to ask Chot to step in.”

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– Rappler.com

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Delfin Dioquino

Delfin Dioquino dreamt of being a PBA player, but he did not have the skills to make it. So he pursued the next best thing to being an athlete – to write about them. He took up journalism at the University of Santo Tomas and joined Rappler as soon as he graduated in 2017.