PBA Getting Selfish

It's been recently released that the PBA will no longer count games against the Smart Gilas National Team against all the PBA teams' records. This means that all games with Gilas will purely be exhibition and for seasoning.

I think this is a bad idea... And I believe that the PBA is getting selfish in doing so. Why?

1) Pro teams will hold back their starters against Gilas since the games no longer matter.

Let's face it. Once you get to the pros, basketball becomes a business and you logically decrease the risk in your assets (players). So, teams will hold back on fielding their best players in the game. They'll just put them in long enough to ensure the win and then, it's bench mob time. Naturally, less minutes on-court means less time for injuries. The exposure to second- and third-stringers is no push-over task still for the Gilas boys, but the progress they will gain will be significantly decreased. Thus, those minutes are lost opportunities for Gilas to get better.

2) The PBA would like to lessen untoward incidents between their players during Gilas games.

This is the PBA's way of becoming preventive, I would guess after the Arboleda incident. What I say is let them play it out and exert their own discipline. Yes, PBA players having chips on their shoulders, roughing up the Gilas boys might be temptations for suspensions, but they are already professionals. It's part of their job to stay under control or else face the necessary sanctions. Let them learn their own discipline.

Also, the international game is filled with physical play. Being unused to this is what did in Philippine teams of old and even the United States years before thier Redeem Team program. Let the Gilas boys be roughed up and let them learn that they have to push back. Maybe this is only when the team would start gaining a swagger and confidence that's needed in the international game.

Bottom line, I know that the PBA is running a business, but to get back to our status as an Asian basketball power, we all need to pay our dues as a country. Being the best league in the country, I hope that the PBA starts seeing that they should be leading the way. Their players might no longer comprise the team, but the "kanya-kanya" attitude does not help at all. We're all just under one flag, one nation...