Gilas 3.0 vs Gilas 2.0: The Guards

It’s the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about: how would Gilas 3.0 fare against Gilas 2.0, the acknowledged best Philippine basketball team in recent times?

Just to be clear, we’ll be using the Gilas 2.0 lineup used at the FIBA World Cup, which means 2014 Andray Blatche will be in play, as well as Paul Lee but not Larry Fonacier nor Marcus Douthit.

We now move on to the last part of this series, the guards.

GILAS 2.0	GILAS 3.0
Jayson Castro	Jayson Castro
LA Tenorio	Terence Romeo
Jimmy Alapag	Dondon Hontiveros
Paul Lee

Once again, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Castro of Gilas 3.0 will be equal to Castor of 2.0. The discussion will now focus on Tenorio, Alapag and Lee vs Romeo and Hontiveros.

ON OFFENSE

On offense, the Gilas 2.0 backcourt is just so much better than Gilas 3.0, not just on the scoring front but, more importantly, on the playmaking front.

Tenorio and Alapag may be the best pure point guards in recent Philippine basketball history and their leadership skills as well as their ability to control the game is practically legendary. Alapag became a worldwide sensation for his timely outside snipings during the FIBA World Cup and Tenorio masterfully quarterbacked the Gilas 2.0 team, despite giving several inches to his counterpart. Paul Lee, on the other hand, is a rugged do-it-all guard who can score inside and outside, and provides muscle and tenacity to a small backcourt. But where this trio really excels is their ability to control the game. Alapag does it with his shooting and passing, Tenorio with his ability to probe the defense's weak spots and exploit them, and Lee with his powerful drives to the basket and ability to find the spot up shooter.

Gilas 3.0 vs Gilas 2.0: The Wings

It’s the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about: how would Gilas 3.0 fare against Gilas 2.0, the acknowledged best Philippine basketball team in recent times?

Just to be clear, we’ll be using the Gilas 2.0 lineup used at the FIBA World Cup, which means 2014 Andray Blatche will be in play, as well as Paul Lee but not Larry Fonacier nor Marcus Douthit.

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll be talking about the wings.

GILAS 2.0	GILAS 3.0
Gabe Norwood	Gabe Norwood
Gary David	Matt Ganuelas-Rosser
Jeff Chan	JC Intal
	Calvin Abueva

Again, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Gilas 3.0’s Norwood is equal to his Gilas 2.0 version. Let’s talk David and Chan versus MGR, Intal and Abueva.

Gilas 3.0 vs Gilas 2.0: The Bigs

It’s the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about: how would Gilas 3.0 fare against Gilas 2.0, the acknowledged best Philippine basketball team in recent times?

Just to be clear, we’ll be using the Gilas 2.0 lineup used at the FIBA World Cup, which means 2014 Andray Blatche will be in play, as well as Paul Lee but not Larry Fonacier nor Marcus Douthit.

With that, let’s start the discussion with the bigs.

GILAS 2.0	GILAS 3.0
Slim Andray Blatche	Portly Andray Blatche
JuneMar Fajardo	Asi Taulava
Japhet Aguilar	Sonny Thoss
Ranidel de Ocampo	Ranidel de Ocampo
Marc Pingris	Marc Pingris

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that Gilas 3.0’s Pingris and de Ocampo will bring the same kind of production as the 2.0 versions of themselves did. That leaves us with six players to discuss: Slim Blatche versus portly Blatche, Fajardo vs Taulava, and Aguilar versus Thoss.

Gilas 3.0: Smaller, Faster, Nastier.

We are one week away from the FIBA-ASIA Championships and by now, the lineup for Gilas Pilipinas has been all but finalized.

Which means it’s time for us to analyze exactly what the strengths and weaknesses of Gilas 3.0 are.

STRENGTHS

SPEED – They say “speed kills”. In the case of Gilas 3.0’s upcoming opponents, this may actually prove to be true. The addition of players like Terence Romeo, Calvin Abueva and Matt Ganuelas-Rosser to cat-quick players like Jayson Castro and Gabe Norwood has given Gilas 3.0 end-to-end speed that promises to give other Asian teams a lot of trouble. So far, only Japan and maybe South Korea seem to have the quickness needed to keep up with Gilas.