My dream FIBA Asia finals: Watching my homelands compete for gold

Rare is the chance to watch a championship game between both of your homelands. This was my case when Gilas Pilipinas took on the undefeated, towering Iranian national basketball team for the title of  number one in Asia, in the 2013 FIBA Asia Championship.

It was fun to watch my parents trading jokes and merrily supporting both teams, while the Philippines (my motherland) and Iran (my fatherland) displayed utmost sportsmanship and athleticism in front of 20,000 fans, including President Aquino, and backed by millions of other Filipinos tuned in to cheer on their national team.  My father, in fact, was quite sympathetic to the Philippines, knowing how basketball is our national passion, while Iran’s A-sport, on the other hand, is really soccer.

Iran has always been an Asian powerhouse in soccer, winning numerous continental awards. This year, they were able to top the Asian Qualifiers for the 2014 Brazil World Cup, twice defeating South Korea along the way. So winning in basketball is icing on the cake.

Although I grew up knowing the Philippines as the most basketball-crazy nation in Asia, I wasn’t surprised by the final result of the tournament. After all, Iran was the champion in 2007 and 2009, repeatedly outflanking mighty China, and competing in the 2008 Olympics and the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

In 2011, Iran’s national squad, as the top-seeded team, was poised for another FIBA Asia title, but Jordan shocked them, booting them out in the quarterfinals. So in many ways, the Iranians were hungry to retake the throne. This year, they defeated all their opponents by double-digits, and demolished Jordan by more than 40 points in the 2013 quarterfinals.

Aside from the stars Samad Nikkah Bahrami, Mahdi Kamrany, and Oshin Sahakian, the Iranians have two NBA players on their squad, namely Hamed Haddadi and Arsalan Kazemi, although the latter missed this year’s competition. There were NBA scouts observing this year’s tournament too, so the 7’2” center Haddadi was particularly conscious about his performance, as he is hoping to land a spot on the New York Knicks roster. The Iranian bench is also stepping up: Iran’s Kamrany-Bahrami-Haddadi indomitable trio now benefits from the improving power forward Oshin Sahakian, as well as Haddadi’s two seven-foot buddies, Asghar Kardoust and Rouzbeh Arghavan.

What explains Iran’s emergence as an Asian basketball powerhouse is not just its size and a few good players. It is as much about the systematic harnessing of the country’s talents, thanks to a decade-old program under the supervision of top-notch Eastern European coaches, namely the Serbian Rajko Toroman, who is also a former Gilas head coach, now PBA consultant with the Barako Bull Energy Cola, and the team’s current coach, the Slovenian Mehmed "Memi" Becirovic.

There is also the element of inspiration from being a kind of underdog. Iran has endured a spate of international sanctions, which are punishing the whole nation, due to a standoff over its nuclear program, placing extra pressure on Iran’s sportsmen to serve as sources of national vigor. And the election of a new Iranian president, who has promised constructive relations abroad and greater freedoms at home, has energized Iran’s athletes.

What’s next?

Frankly, during the championship match, I clapped for both sides, especially when the likes of Jimmy Alapag, Jayson Castro, Haddadi, and Kamrany pushed themselves to the limit, showing how Asia is well on its way to greater glories in world basketball. Thus, I was also observing how Asian basketball compares with Europe and the Americas.

While size continues to be a big concern, with perhaps only Iran having the standard international size among Asian nations, a lot will depend on shooting, strategy, and programmatic training, factors that explain US’s previous losses to Argentina and European powers. So this is what the Philippines should focus on, and this requires sustained financial and logistical support from a state-private sector partnership.

Iran and China have emerged as Asian basketball titans with no naturalized players. So I am not sure, especially given the restrictions on the number of naturalized players a country can field during international tournaments, if the answer to the Philippines’ weaknesses is more naturalized players for the Philippines, as some legislators have proposed. It is perhaps more about focusing on the available pool of talent, strategizing ways to overcome size differentials by improving shooting and fast-break transitions, and above all, more training with top teams around the world.

This is just the beginning of a new era for Philippine basketball, so the country must make the most out of it. - HS/AMD, GMA News
 

Richard Javad Heydarian is a lecturer at the Political Science Department, Ateneo De Manila University, and a contributor to the Asia Times and Huffington Post on Asian geopolitical and economic affairs. He can be reached at jrheydarian@gmail.com