The absence of logic

The last time the Philippine Basketball Association got in a mess this big was during its Fil-Sham phase (that some say isn’t over by a longshot). They have not acted sensibly and have displayed an appalling lack of logic with many things that have gone down.

To wit:

The Japeth Aguilar case where he refused to sign with Burger King. Of course the aggrieved party here wanted a lifetime ban. But on what grounds? There is no such rule that penalizes a draftee who refuses to sign with a team. There has been precedent before and each time the team called for a ban. But what about those players who are drafted but not signed to a contract? The draft through the years is littered with players who were cast by the wayside and this year is no different as Edwin Asoro and James Sena were not signed. In the meantime, the PBA has to appease the smaller teams because they need them for their intra-team trades. So they resort to a face saving move by having Aguilar play one game for the Whoppers before trading him to Red Bull then to Talk ‘N Text where he will play not for the Tropang Texters but with Smart Gilas.

Now if they come up with a rule that will penalize a draftee for not signing in the future then that is a knee-jerk reaction that. Yes, there are rules but that doesn’t mean that it’s right or just.

Then there's the decision to render non-bearing the games of Smart Gilas in the current Philippine Cup. It’s funny how they insinuate that Gilas’ loss to TNT was a “hulog” match since they are in some way “brother teams” – why in the blue hell are they called sister teams? This isn’t the WNBA!

They question CJ Giles’ benching as well as the absence of Rabeh Al-Hussaini and Chris Tiu.

How about when Purefoods sat Ramon Fernandez against Anejo? Why didn’t the other teams raise of a howl of protest? Because they know why he was benched? So why should the current internal problems and injuries of Smart Gilas concern them?

Taking that further… can we insinuate that Ginebra San Miguel gave away the Fiesta Cup championship to San Miguel last season? That was a mighty suspicious Game 7 where nothing went right for the Gin Kings. How can their import play like it’s the first time he set foot on a court? And everyone had a poor game at the same time? I wasn’t born yesterday. Why don’t you investigate that?

Can Ginebra’s wins in this tourney be rendered non-bearing since Mark Caguiao is injured again?

You cannot just change the tournament rules once it gets underway? And as I recall, when the Northern Consolidated Cement team competed in the PBA, they even won a championship. But Gilas doesn’t get the same? But NCC had three Americans in their line up?  If a PBA team beats Gilas then it counts in the standings but if they don’t win then it doesn’t hurt them? What happened to the stats?

Sorry but this is a failure of leadership and again, a lack of rational thinking.

But that happened before. The late PBA Commissioner Jun Bernardino once told me how the league reacted negatively to the rise of the Metropolitan Basketball Association by repeatedly touring the countryside and making sure that Ginebra was always in the main game.

Kume said that eventually some members complained that Ginebra was getting the star treatment. His reply was, if they play in the main game, the crowd will stay ‘til the end.

Overruled, the Ginebra games were scheduled for the first match of the double header. And after the Gin Kings’ games the crowd would leave and empty seats looked real bad on television. It hurts when you are the premier basketball league in the country and you can’t fill up the venues.

I shook my head when I read that the PBA and SBP Executive Director Noli Eala are leaning towards a positive solution on the issue of a possible Smart Gilas pullout.

Well, this is the sort of thing that needs to be discussed internally without going to the press where you will be tried and judged even when there is an absence of information.

Do you guys even think?

And can anyone tell me the difference in responsibilities between GAB, PSC, and POC? Looks like they overlap here and there. That’s why we have all this squabbling; too many cooks in the kitchen. An example of this was the study made by a research group on the problems of the Philippine Football Federation – too many committees and not enough work gets done. They fight more in the backroom and the media than they do in international competitions. 

I understand that the GAB is in charge of overseeing conduct of the athletes and all sporting events. So who oversees their conduct? I recall that we used to give them fees when they oversee our billiards tournaments when I was in Solar Sports. Ah, aren’t they paid a salary?

“Maraming gustong makaalam kung ano ang kalalabasan ng investigation ng GAB sa kaso kaya hindi na namin patatagalin pa ito,” said Dioscoro Bautista, Chief Officer of Pro Basketball and Other Pro Sports who is part of the fact-finding committee formed by GAB to handle the case.

Yo, chief. Who are these people who want to find out the results of your investigation? Care to share their names?

Remember when Ginebra walked out against Shell? They were fined half a million but why wasn’t this investigated by Congress or GAB?

I’m just wondering – we have a lot of non-performing NSAs; why aren’t they investigated? Who grades their performance?

Too many inconsistencies and bone headed decisions! No wonder the state of our sports scene is in poor shape.