Mentored by Robert Jaworski, the 1990 Philippine basketball team remains one of the most celebrated national squads in history.
TACTICIAN. The legendary Robert Jaworski recruited players he knew would fit his system and vision. Photo from Jaworski’s Facebook page /Ferdie Villas
As the the Philippines sought to erase the stigma of the embarrassing SEA Games debacle, the basketball-crazy country got lucky when FIBA finally declared the advent of open basketball, paving the way for professional players to join international competitions. By late July, Jaworski had already completed his 12-men squad. There were shoo-ins such as Presto’s main gunner Allan Caidic, Benjie Paras of Shell, and Alvin Patrimonio of Purefoods.
Bong Alvarez of Alaska and Nelson Asaytono of Purefoods were the reserves. Jojo Lastimosa was the most notable omission. By that time, Jaworski roughly had two weeks to prepare the team before the Asian Games kicked off on September 23. Jaworski, though, was more circumspect as he told the Chinese media: ”We might not come out with good results this time but at least we started to send our best players to major international competitions like before.”
One of the fondest memories of older Filipino fans is a 6-foot-2 Loyzaga applying literal belly-up defense on North Korea’s best player, 7-foot-9 Ri Myung-Hun. The Filipinos got off to another slow start as they trailed at the break, 42-55. They regrouped in the second half to escape with a close win, 80-75. Paras pumped in 21 points while Loyzaga converted 3 triples to finish with 11 points.Well-oiled
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