International play-what it should mean to local basketball
Centre Court with Brian Manning
T&T Express Reports.
Now that Trinidad and Tobago’s senior men’s and women’s basketball teams have qualified for the Centrobasket tournament, the most prestigious tournament in the region and a qualifier for the Olympic Games, it’s time for the basketball community to take a long, hard look at itself and face reality.
The qualification of both teams is a truly historic event, especially in light of the fact that the men’s senior team has not qualified for this tournament since 1989...that’s 21 years of futility.
Why did it take this long for T&T basketball to regain a position of prominence in the region?
The Caribbean Basketball Confederation’s (CBC) tournament is the qualifying event for Caribbean teams to get to the Centrobasket tournament, which is a playoff between the best teams in the Caribbean and Central America.
One of the main reasons why our men have been unable to qualify was a decision by FIBA Americas (regional basketball governing body) in the 1990s to include the Spanish-speaking powerhouse countries of the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean group.
Puerto Rico is currently ranked tenth in the world and has dominated basketball in this region for a long time. They have been to the Olympics and are actually one of the few teams in the world that has beaten the US ’Dream Team’ in competition.
The Dominican Republic, ranked 26th in the world, last year in a qualifying tournament for the World Games fielded a team that included three NBA players and a host of other professional and US college players.
Cuba has a strict year-round basketball programme that regularly churns out players of a very high calibre--they were by far the most disciplined and fundamental team in last year’s CBC tournament.
T&T have never beaten Cuba in basketball to my knowledge. Add Jamaica to the mix, who in last year’s CBC championships fielded an impressive team anchored by hulking University of Louisville power forward Samardo Samuels and was coached by former NBA players Sam Vincent and Paul Mokeski, and it becomes abundantly clear how stiff the competition in the region is.
Things won’t get any easier at the Centrobasket tournament, unfortunately.
Ten teams have qualified for the men’s tournament-Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cuba, Dominican Republic (ranked 26th), Jamaica, Mexico (ranked 30th), Panama (ranked 31st), Puerto Rico (ranked 10th), Trinidad & Tobago (unranked for now) and US Virgin Islands (ranked 39th).
What do the top teams in this field have in common? They are all laden with professional athletes. Why? There is simply no other way to compete.
As the level of play in the region improved over the last two decades T&T did not adjust and we continued to field teams dominated by amateur players. That strategy has failed miserably for more than two decades.
The main reason we qualified for the Centro tournament this year is because we made full use of the professional players available to us at the time--we got, bigger, younger, faster and better.
In 2008 T&T sent a team to the CBC tournament filled with amateur players who practiced for three months and proceeded to finish dead last.
In 2009, due to a late invitation to the tournament, T&T sent a team that practiced for three weeks mainly comprised of professionals and Division 1 US college players and had our best finish in 21 years.
Having a coach like Terry Layton, who is a certified FIBA expert and has decades of experience coaching at an elite level, also placed us in a position to achieve the unthinkable.
Trinidad and Tobago were the surprise team of the tournament because after our performance in 2008 no one really expected much from us.
Our amazing accomplishment should be celebrated but should also serve as notice to all those wishing to represent T&T in basketball that the bar has been raised.
I am certainly not saying that there is no room for amateur players on T&T’s national basketball teams, but they need to realise that they are now competing for a limited number of spots against an ever-improving pool of talent.
In essence, amateurs need to start practicing like pros. Practicing means working on the fundamentals of the game every single day, not ’taking a sweat’ every afternoon with players from the community or club.
The skill of shooting the basketball is at a premium in international play because teams just will not allow a player to drive to the basket on a regular basis.
If a player can’t shoot the ball then he/she is going to have a hard time competing at the highest level.
Winning at these international tournaments is crucial to the development of domestic basketball. The NBFTT should not expect to go to the government every year with cap in hand asking for millions of dollars (and that is exactly what it takes to prepare a national team) to field teams that win absolutely nothing.
Winning national teams attract young people to the sport and crucial sponsorship money that should be used to fuel the country’s youth and national team developmental programmes. How is basketball going to attract that necessary sponsorship by fielding teams no one would want to sponsor?
There is a vast difference between development and elitism, sending a team to a world class tournament for a week to badly lose every game does nothing to develop anything-that is a paid vacation with the bill being footed by taxpayers’ dollars.
Until a proper professional league can be established in the region, and/or a domestic elite training centre, our best amateurs should be marketed to international professional leagues and US colleges so that they can earn a viable living while learning what it truly means to be a professional athlete.
The point is now that the bar has been raised we all have to continue to improve as players, coaches and administrators so that T&T can perennially enjoy the level of success we all expect.
The old standards and norms can no longer apply if we are to aspire to greatness in the international sphere and field a team in the 2012 Olympic Games.
We all have to lift our standards and being resistant to positive change will only do more damage than good.
Brian Manning is president of the National Basketball Federation of Trinidad & Tobago (NBFTT).
bmanning@nbftt.org
