GOOD ENOUGH FOR GILAS: ARWIND SANTOS

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2014 is going to be a BIG year for Philippine basketball. This year will mark the first time two of our Philippine National Teams (Men’s and U17) will march onto the world stage and compete at the highest level of international hoops. Our very own Gilas Pilipinas squad will go to Spain and play in the 2014 FIBA World Cup, while the Philippine U17 Team, coached by Jamike Jarin, will troop over to Dubai for the 2014 FIBA U17 World Championships.

It’s been reported that the Gilas Pilipinas brain trust is keen on tapping more players to join the pool, with the magic number pegged at 24. That means that there are still around eleven slots open. Take note that this does not YET include the two naturalized prospects of the team — Javale McGee of the Denver Nuggets and Andray Blatche of the Brooklyn Nets. We’re still not sure if their respective naturalization processes will finish in time for Gilas to include their names in the final 24-man pool.

This is the fourth piece in a series of posts detailing the players who can be part of that pool. For each named individual, we will look at the good things he can bring to the pool, his probable role should he get named to the final Gilas lineup, and the possible match-ups he will have at the Asian and world levels.

Today, we’ll talk about one of someone who has been a part of the national men’s team once (in 2009 for Powerade Team Pilipinas), though many people believe he’s good enough to have been part of the 2011 and 2013 iterations, too. I’m talking about nobody but last season’s Most Valuable Player, Petron Blaze’s do-it-all forward, Arwind Santos.

What he brings to the table:

If you thought that, individually, Ranidel De Ocampo and Marc Pingris were both awesome in the 2013 FIBA Asia Men’s tourney, you’d be spot on. Now, try to take the best of those two (strong wing play from RDO and solid two-way low-block skills from Ping) and put them together in a lengthy, lanky package. What do you have? I dare say you have the reigning MVP — Arwind Santos.

Ever since he first broke into the pros, the former King Tamaraw from FEU has been a superb basketball specimen. He has never averaged worse than 12.5 points or 7.8 rebounds in a season. From 2010-2012, he normed a double-double for San Miguel/Petron Blaze, and he won the MVP plum 2013, which was a tad controversial since, strangely enough, last season was, statistically speaking, his worst. Right now, however, the Spiderman is doing excellently, averaging career-highs in points, three-point percentage, and overall efficiency. In short, he’s currently playing the best basketball of his life, and the Philippine National Team should stand to benefit from it. No doubt, Santos has to be, at the very least, invited to the pool.

He pretty much has the same skill-set that, combined, all the current Gilas PFs (RDO, Ping, and Japeth Aguilar) do — he shoots from long range, he drives to the hole, he crashes the boards, he blocks shots, he plays defense on the opposing team’s best player, he’s super athletic, and he runs the floor. At times, in fact, it seems Santos is the best player in the entire country. I really cannot stress enough how important it is to try and put him in a Gilas jersey.

Why he is a good fit for Gilas: 

The last time Santos donned the national colors was in 2009, when the FIBA Asia Championship was held in Tianjin, China. That was a disastrous tournament for both Powerade Team Pilipinas and Santos. The Pinoys definitely carried a ton of talent every time they trooped to the floor, but it was clear that this unit was more reminiscent of an All-Star team than a bona fide national squad. The way Powerade played was just not the kind of thing one was accustomed to seeing from successful FIBA teams, unless that team was the USA. The team could put together a highlight reel in a jiffy, but it also lost five of its nine games, with the only convincing wins against Sri Lanka and Kuwait.

Santos wasn’t impressive in this tournament, too. This was ironic because rumors were swirling about some international scouts tagging him as “one to watch.” He started well, scoring 16 points in 20 minutes against Sri Lanka, but he averaged just 3.1 points per game the rest of the way. He went scoreless in four of Powerade’s nine matches, and, eventually, let’s just say he was no longer “one to watch” well into the second round.

In a way, that is why I think the time is right for Santos. He has all the motivation in the world to prove himself, and, now that he’s playing his best ball and could be playing for a national coach seasoned with a myriad of international experience, everything is set for him to thrive. He has the agility to stay toe-to-toe with some of the international game’s top swingmen, and he has the chutzpah to mix it up down low, too. For Santos, there is no better time than now.

Potential match-ups:

FIBA-Asia: Yi Li (CHN), Oh Se-Keun (KOR), Oshin Sahakian (IRI)

FIBA World Cup: Mika Vukona (NZL), Maleye Ndoye (SEN), Renaldo Balkman (PUR)

Listed at 6’4-6’5, Santos will definitely have a size disadvantage against the continent’s and the world’s best forwards, but what he lacks in size he can make up for in terms of athleticism and “diskarte.” He’s a little quicker than most of the guys mentioned above, and he can stretch the floor if his perimeter game is clicking. Also, man, I’d love to see Santos play AGAINST former Petron import Renaldo Balkman on the world stage. How awkward and weirdly entertaining would that be, knowing their, er, memorable history?

In the next post, we’ll take a look at one of the guys who led Gilas in its conquest of the 2013 Super Kung Sheung Cup — KG Cañaleta.

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