Playing in the street

BAGUIO CITY — Remember when your parents told you not to play in the streets? Well, it seems that admonition no longer applies when it comes to playing street basketball. The 10th edition of the adidas Streetball Challenge Luzon finals at the St. Louis University and SM atrium here was a welcome respite from the suffocating heat of Metro Manila, even though it’s not as cool as the Baguio we once knew.

Entries from Naga, Lipa and Pampanga made the long trip to the country’s summer capital, just in time to witness the Baguio eliminations Saturday. There is much more at stake in this year’s competition.The Asian adidas Streetball finals will be held at the Araneta Center in September, to be marked by the return of NBA scoring leader Tracy McGrady of the Houston Rockets, NBA Slam Dunk champion Josh Smith of the Atlanta Hawks, and rookie Sebastian Telfair of the Portland Trailblazers.

McGrady, who visited the country with Tim Thomas five years ago, is aware of the impact basketball has had on the country. In an interview with this writer at the NBA China games and the launch of his adidas T-Mac 4 in Shanghai last year, McGrady remembers his visit to the Philippines, and said "I‘d like to give a shout-out to all my fans in the Philippines, my number one fans there."

Telfair, for his part, will be making his first visit to the country. The 13th overall pick out of Oak Hill Academy high school in Virginia in the last NBA draft, became a sensation when he surprised many favored players to win the Slam Dunk contest in the last NBA All-Star Game in Denver.

Telfair, who, like Smith went to the NBA straight out of high school, has averaged 6.6 points and 3.3 assists for the Blazers. The 6-foot guard will also be making his first trip here. Many of today’s NBA players came through street basketball tournaments like Streetball.

The adidas Streetball Challenge has greatly evolved from its rather substantial start in 1996, and has helped mold more than a few of the country’s most recognized players today. Red Bull Barako’s Enrico Villanueva and FedEx Express‚ Wesley Gonzales were teammates on the squad that finished second in the 1997 edition in this city, losing by one point to the host team. In the Metro Manila semifinals that year, they eliminated a UST varsity squad led by Gerard Francisco. That was, incidentally, Baguio’s first-ever national basketball title, and its players were rewarded with a trip to Paris for the adidas World Streetball finals, where they got to meet adidas endorsers Kobe Bryant and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In keeping with tradition, Baguio even outdid Metro Manila this year, bringing in more entries than Metro Manila’s version, not only from Benguet, but from Pangasinan, La Union and Tarlac. Even San Miguel Beer’s Danny Ildefonso sent a team to the Mountain Province just to participate.

The rules are very simple. Each side starts with three players, and before each inbound the ball is "checked" by the opponent. A regular basketball accounts for one point, a shot made from beyond the regular three-point line is worth two. The game runs 15 minutes, all except the last two minutes are running time. In case of a deadlock at the end of regulation, the teams shoot it out, with every player who hasn’t fouled out taking a turn until one team is ahead. The seniors division is for players 16 to 19 years, and they, along with the girls’ champions, will play for the right to represent the country.

Although European countries have discontinued participation in international street basketball (opting instead for indoor soccer), the Asian championships are a big deal. In 2003, a University of the Visayas foursome coached by retired PBA All-Star Boy Cabahug and headed by Granny Goose center JR Quiñahan won not only the national finals (earning a trip to China), but also copped the Asian title, and were rewarded with a trip to the US. This year, hundreds of teams are hungry for the chance to win supremacy over Asia on their home soil.

Other sports brands have given up on three-on-three basketball, thinking it a waste of their resources. But they don’t realize that this is where the game was born, and it is actually the purest form of the sport. Even our former national players, like 1936 Berlin Olympian Jacinto Ciria Cruz, fell in love with the game on the streets. It has been said that a visitor to the Philippines is sure to encounter three things on a trip to any community here: a statue of national hero Jose Rizal, a barangay hall, and a street basketball court. That belief seems to be justified.

From Baguio, Streetball heads to the Visayas and Mindanao,ending in two months, with the champions waiting for their Asian rivals to plane in for their battles in September.