Time and preparation - FIBA World Cup stint for Gilas should mean PBA schedule changes

In the afterglow of Gilas Pilipinas booking a berth to the 2014 FIBA World Cup, it may slip people's minds just how much change was made by the PBA to its schedule, in order to ensure that the national team could have adequate preparation for the FIBA Asia tournament.

Normally, the PBA season takes place from late September/early October to early August, with three conferences. For the 2012-13 season, the league extended the gap between the middle Commissioner's Cup (normally early February to early May) and the Governors' Cup (normally late May to early August) from two weeks to three months, in order to give Gilas from mid-May to the end of July to train.

	Commissioner's Cup	FIBA break	Governors' Cup
2011-12 Season	early February - early May	N/A	late May - early August
2012-13 Season	early February - mid-May	mid May - mid-August	mid-August - mid-October

(That in itself did not go as smoothly as planned. While the national team managed to go to train abroad, they were unable to defend their 2012 Jones Cup title, due to international tensions between the Philippines and Taiwan)

As of writing, the Governors Cup is just getting underway, with the elimination round slated to end on September 22 (though with the recent rescheduling of games due to the weather, that date is probably going to get pushed back). Factor in the postseason, and it's not unfair to peg the end of the 2012-13 season at sometime in mid-October, with the league's annual draft likely a week after. Then the whole thing starts over again, probably in November, with the 2013-14 season.

The problem though, or at least, the threat to the schedule is that not only will the 2013-14 PBA season start later than usual, it will inevitably have to be interrupted again, or cut short, due to the 2014 FIBA World Cup.

True, the Philippines is not hosting that event, Spain will, and the chances of our national team even getting past the initial group stage are slim, but that's no reason to send an under-prepared squad. And so, there will have to be some allowance for training time again for Gilas.

(Why not just 'pull out' the members of the national team from their mother squads? For all the talk of sacrifice, it's highly unlikely that teams will agree to weaken themselves, and it doesn't make sense to "punish" good teams lending out multiple players, like Rain or Shine and Talk 'N Text)

This is my long-winded way towards saying that it is perhaps time to rethink the way we structure the PBA season. We want the national team to be good; we want to keep sending well-prepared, well-drilled squads that are truly the best of the best among our local players. As such, we ought to start factoring in the international basketball schedule when constructing the PBA schedule, because don't we think Philippine basketball ought to be on an international stage more often?

After the 2014 World Cup, there will be another FIBA Asia tourney, then there will be qualifiers for the Olympics, then who knows? Maybe Gilas somehow qualifies for the Olympics. Even if they don't, that's a one-year reprieve before the cycle repeats anew.

If we were to change the PBA schedule, where should we start?
 

A look at the international calendar has most tournaments taking place from August to the middle of September. If we're going to give the national team something like two months off, you'd need to have the season wrap-up sometime in June. We're also going to start the new season by around mid-October to still allow them to practice with their mother squads.

As a side effect, we'd be increasing the amount of time between PBA seasons. Normally, there's only about a two-month break, but hopefully, the international action, tune-ups, and then the actual tourney, will tide people over.

By trimming the length of the PBA schedule, it also brings up the obvious question, can we support three conferences in a shorter amount of time?

A brief background on the PBA schedule - it used to span late February to mid-December with three conferences, and was like that as late as the 2003 season, before then-commissioner Noli Eala changed it to two conferences from early October to early July. It wasn't until the 2010-11 season, under commissioner Sonny Barrios, that the league returned to three conferences, by splitting the double round-robin import-laden tourney into two smaller contests.

	# conferences	Start	End
2003 and earlier	3 conferences	late Feb.	mid-Dec.
2004 - 2010	2 conferences	early Oct.	early July
2010 to now	3 conferences	early Oct.	early July

In an interview with GMA News several years back, Barrios said the return to three conferences was to "lessen the [number of] non-bearing games." An alternate way to look at it is the fact that people like postseason matches. Casual fans are more likely to tune in when it's the quarterfinals onwards, and more conferences mean more postseason games. I have no idea if that's what the league was thinking, but it makes sense doesn't it? By creating a more exciting product, the fans win, and so do the owners.

(It also means more sponsorships and other things outside of ticket sales and the like)

	Conference	Elims. games	Postseason games
09-10 season	PHL Cup	90	Wildcard + Wildcard + best-of-5 QF + best-of-7 SF + best-of-7 Finals = min. 111 / max. 124
	Fiesta Cup	90	Wildcard + Wildcard + best-of-5 QF + best-of-7 SF + best-of-7 Finals = min. 111 / max. 124
	Sum	180	min. 42 / max. 68
11-12 season	PHL Cup	70	2x to beat QF + best-of-7 SF + best-of-7 Finals = min. 88 / max. 101
	Comm Cup	45	Best-of-3 QF + best-of-5 SF + best-of-7 Finals = min. 59 / max. 68
	Gov Cup	45	Round-robin semis for top 6 (15 games) + best of 7 Finals = min. 19 / max. 22
	Sum	160	min. 166 / max. 191

There are pros and cons for both arguments. Two conferences mean more games in the elimination round. More games means a larger sample size, which means there's a bigger certainty that the better teams make it to the postseason.

On the flip side, a nine-game elimination round (single round-robin), makes luck more of a factor. An injury to a superstar could derail a conference, but it also opens the door for other franchises, especially a squad that manages to catch fire down the stretch. Such a scenario has its merits as well.

Proposal I

Proposal A means just two conferences, an all-Filipino conference, plus an import-conference without a height limit.

Our Philippine Cup has a double round-robin elimination round (teams play all of the other teams twice), with the postseason being the same as the current set-up (2x to beat for the top two seeds, best-of-3 for the middle four, best-of-7 semis, best-of-7 Finals).
 

Philippine Cup
Elimination round	October 23	January 12
Quarterfinals	January 15	January 20
Semifinals	January 22	February 4
Finals	February 7	February 19

The new Commissioner's Cup elimination round on the other hand is a single round-robin (teams play all of the other teams once), before a squad plays the other four teams of their group once more. It has the same postseason set-up as our Philippine Cup.

Commissioner's Cup
Elimination round	March 7	May 4
Quarterfinals	May 7	May 12
Semifinals	May 14	May 27
Finals	May 30	June 11

In addition, two weeks after the end of the season, I'd have Gilas Pilipinas play against a selection of PBA teams, or heck, even all of the PBA teams, plus their imports, as a series of tune-up games to help them in their build-up to whatever international tournament. There won't be any standings, but you can bet, it sure will be competitive.

Proposal II

I was challenged by my co-worker, Carlo Pamintuan, to try to fit a three-conference schedule into our allotted timeframe. After some playing around with a calendar, the answer is yes, it can be done, but not without a lot of shortcuts.

Let's assume that we keep the current rules of the three conferences first, all-Filipino, imports with no height limit, imports with a 6'5" height cap. From there, we have to settle for only single round-robin elimination rounds for all tournaments, meaning the postseason battles start a lot faster, which is not a bad thing for a lot of people.

We can keep the current postseason set-up of the Philippine Cup intact, but to make things fit, we have to cut the semifinals to just a best-of-five, instead of best-of-seven. The following is what we got:
 

Philippine Cup
Elimination round	October 23	November 29
Quarterfinals	November 4	November 9
Semifinals (best-of-7)	November 12	November 25
Finals	November 29	December 11

Commissioner's Cup
Elimination round	January 1	February 8
Quarterfinals	February 12	February 17
Semifinals (best-of-5)	February 20	March 1
Finals	March 4	March 16

Governors Cup
Elimination round	April 9	May 17
Quarterfinals	May 20	May 25
Semifinals (best-of-5)	May 28	June 6
Finals	June 10	June 23

In this scenario, the season ends about two weeks later, resulting in less national team practice time, but you get a full slate of conferences, plus some fast-paced tournaments.

Anyway, those are my suggestions to adapt the PBA schedule into something that makes more sense, given international tournaments. Let us know how you feel in the poll, or in the comments, below.