February 28, 2023 • 37 mins
What if I told you the 'skyhook' actually originated in the Philippines? Okay, that one might not be true... but what if?
Only ten years after James Naismith hung two peach baskets and refereed the first game of basketball, there were already reports of American soldiers introducing the sport to Filipino locals in Manila. It caught on quickly, first with college students, and then becoming as central to Philippine culture as adobo. In this episode, Cassidy and Nikko talk to the foremost experts in the colonial history of basketball in the Philippines about the Philippines’ early success in international competitions, and how Pinoy players on the other side of the world from the NBA developed a unique style of basketball like you’ve never seen before.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One day I had an idea. I called the boys
to the gym, divided them up into teams of nine,
and gave them an old soccer ball. I showed them
two peach baskets i'd nailed up at each end of
the gym. I told them the idea was to throw
the ball into the opposing team's peach basket. I blow
(00:20):
a whistle, and the first game of basketball began. Ten
years later, basketball was being played all over the country,
and in nineteen thirty six I saw it played for
the first time at the Olympic Games. And the whole
thing started with a couple of peach baskets I put
up in a little Jim forty eight years ago. I
(00:42):
guess it just goes to show what you can do
if you had That's the voice of doctor James Naysmith
from a nineteen thirty nine radio interview describing the day
in eighteen ninety one when he invented the game of basketball.
It's crazy to think of how basketball has grown here
(01:02):
in the States and around the world since its beginnings
at that YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts. What's even wilder is
that only about ten years after nay Smith hung those
peach baskets and referee the first game of basketball ever played.
In eighteen ninety one, there were already reports of American
(01:22):
soldiers spreading the gospel of hoop in Manila and other
parts of the Philippines. The history of Philippine basketball goes
back more than one hundred years. It's a long story,
but you need to know it if you want to
understand the role basketball and the MBA playing the Philippines today.
This is episode two of Hoops Paradise, the Philippines Love
(01:45):
of the Game, brought to you by iHeartRadio and the MBA.
Hey everyone, my name is Cassidy Hopth. I'm a reporter
for ESPN covering the NBA both on the sidelines and
in studio. I'm also have Filipino. My mother is from
the Philippines, but I've only been back to the Philippines twice.
(02:07):
We're here to learn more about basketball in the Philippines
and to help us do that, my partner in crime,
Nico Ramos. Hey, that's me. I'm here in the Philippines.
My official job designation as president of Cassidy Hubbard's fan Club,
but also I'm an editor for Slam in the Philippines,
and I work for a basketball company full time. That's
(02:30):
actually what I do at Titan. We're going to take
a deep dive into anything and everything that has to
do with basketball and the Philippines. To figure out how
basketball became the cultural force that it is today in
the Philippines. We have to go way back. First. We
need to explain some historical basics about the centuries of
(02:50):
first Spanish and then American colonial rule that preceded Philippine
independence in nineteen forty six. It reminds me of something
I've always wondered about. The line that appears in so
many of the Philippine travel guide books produced here in
the States. Were explains the colonial period by saying, the
Philippines spent three hundred years in a convent and fifty
(03:15):
years in Hollywood. Look, if you have to boil down
the nation's history into a snappy one liner that you
can print onto some guide books, you could really do worse.
The line does capture something real about the colonial whiplash
that Filipinos lived through, beginning with the Spanish period's conversion
of the Philippines to a majority Catholic nation and then
(03:38):
giving way to the go go commercialism of American culture.
Of course, those three hundred and fifty years of colonial
history are also filled with stories of Filipino resistance and
nation building that don't come across when we focus solely
on which foreign power impose its rule on the country
at a given time, or how Filipinos have adopted parts
(04:00):
of Spanish an American don't forget the Japanese influence and
adapted them over time to create cultural hybrids that exist
only in the Philippines. Let's take, for example, something we
hold near and dear to our hearts, adubo, only taking
us two episodes before we brought up a double. It's
(04:22):
the unofficial dish of the Philippines. It's a very weird
example for us to start with. But you know, play
along with me here, trust me, you don't have to
talk me into adobo. Just though the chicken and pork
in a pot with soy sauce, you know, vinegar, some
bay leaves a whole grip of garlic massarat, Yes exactly.
(04:42):
It's something that we all grew up with and it's
probably something that we all still cook at home. But
every few years here in the Philippines, we go through
the same public debate about the origins of adubo, which
was introduced during the Spanish colonial era, of course, and
the sides are always the same, right. One group argues
that adobo doesn't deserve its reputation as a national dish
(05:06):
because it's not a native recipe, and the other side
kind of rolls its eyes and says, you still eat
it though. Right. One of the country's great writers, the
late Nickoaquin, even wrote about the adobo debate in an
essay collection published almost forty five years ago. We've been
fighting about this for this long, but here's the quote
that really captures his point. If you tell the Pinoia
(05:29):
on the street that adobo is but a thin veneer
of westernization, the pinoia may retort that, as far as
he's concerned, adobo is as Filipino as his very own guts.
And indeed, one could travel the world and nowhere find
anything quite like Philippine adobo. It's the same for other
colonial influences on Philippine culture. Philippine Catholicism is not Spanish Catholicism.
(05:54):
Philippine English definitely is into American English, and Philippine basketball,
I'm sure isn't the American game. The US may have
introduced the sports, thank you very much, but we definitely
made it our own. And that's where our man, doctor
Lou Antealihau comes in. When it comes to the early
history of Philippine basketball, our expertise only go so far.
(06:18):
We can get things started with the basic timeline like this.
Spain seeded ownership of LUs East Las Philippine US to
the United States in eighteen ninety eight at the end
of the Spanish American War. The US actually paid Spain
twenty million dollars to purchase the territory. The promotion of
sports was an important facet of US colonial rule, and
(06:38):
basketball arrived in the Philippines in the early nineteen hundreds.
American soldiers were the first to spread the game along
with other sports. After the Philippine American War, they moved
to Manila as well to look after some of the
needs of American soldiers. We caught up with Professor Lou Antelihau,
(06:58):
the foremost expert the colonial roots of basketball in the Philippines,
to fill in some of the details. So they set
up camp in Manila. But then ten years after they
decided to set up an actual YMCA in Manila to
cater to mainly American and European citizens young men who
live in Manila during that time. So that's how it starts.
(07:21):
Basketball was entertainment for Americans and Europeans in Manila, with
Filipinos spectating. Filipinos didn't officially get off the sidelines and
start hooping until nineteen ten. In nineteen ten, there's this
Physical Education Instructor YMCA missionary who was assigned to Manila.
(07:44):
He was coach a basketball coach in the University of
Illinois before that. His name is Ellwood Brown, and so
Ellwood Brown formalized you know, the introduction of basketball in
the Philippines. He organized a YMCA team in By nineteen eleven,
hoops had been added to the fized curriculum in the
new American run public school system. Here's a twist in
(08:08):
that early guide for teachers, basketball was suggested as an
activity for schoolgirls who were considered too delicate for baseball
or track and field. In nineteen twenty four, universities in
Manila established their own NCAA, and college hoops were an
immediate hit as a spectator sport for well to do
you know it's in the Capitol. That started the popularity
(08:30):
in basketball because college students are seen as you know,
educated and you know, they're the future of the nation,
and basketball has taken on this connotation as a modern
sports and therefore part of modernity, and taking part in
basketball is like taking part of something new, something modern,
(08:51):
something exciting. It's not a stretch to say that Filipinos
learned to play basketball at a high level before almost
every other nation but the United States, and that head
start made the national team international powerhouses in that era.
A few years after that, they dominated, you know, the
local competitions. From nineteen thirteen to nineteen thirty four, the
(09:14):
Philippines won gold gold at nine of the first ten
basketball tournaments. At a biannual regional competition called the Far
Eastern Championship Games. In nineteen thirty six, we were among
the nations to participate in the first Olympic basketball tournament,
and that team went four and one and deserved to medal.
(09:36):
Eighteen years after that, we did just that at the
nineteen fifty four Pheble World Championships, a team led by
Carlos Colloi. The big difference. Loizaga still considered by some,
including myself, to be the greatest player in the country's
history because of the glory he brought us on the
international stage, that team, led by that man claimed bronze,
(09:58):
and that's still the finish an Asian team has ever
achieved at a world level turn and all throughout that
half century of success, the Filipino's love of the game
just kept growing and growing. Basketball is a major cultural
force has existed far longer in the Philippines than it
did in the States and maybe any other country in
(10:20):
the world. It's a global game here and now in
twenty twenty three, and every year as more and more
international players join NBA rosters, it becomes clear that the
rest of the world has caught the bug. But when
you go back to the advent of the sport, it
really sounds like Filipinos were patient zero for basketball fever.
(10:41):
I actually pulled up one of my favorite quotes from
an early legend of the Philippine games from an article
look at Me, citing my sources in nineteen thirty three
and written by Ambroscho Padilia, who would go on to
be captain of the nineteen thirty six Olympic team and
then serve in the philip Senate after his playing career,
(11:02):
by the way, way too overachieve. Seriously, he says, if
you want to know where a little Pedro is at
the sizzling hour of two in the afternoon, amble to
the nearest basketball court, and there you will find him
judiciously throwing a bouncing ball into a hoop. The ambition
of every healthy boy now is to be a basketball player.
His hero is no longer the baseballer, but the basketballer.
(11:27):
How is anyone supposed to judiciously shoot jump shots? Like?
What does that even mean? Was little Pedro also practicing
sensible layups and prudent crossovers out there? Like, who's got
the most judicious shot in the NBA right now? First
of all, if your crossover is prudent, it's not working.
(11:49):
I think that's why I never made it. I think
my crossover was too prudent, It was too respectful out there.
But seriously, it is amazing to think that basketball was
already a major force in Philippine life, with heated college
tournaments and thriving semipro commercial leagues and a national team
preparing to make its debut on the Olympic stage. All
(12:11):
the way back to Padilia's day, I mean nineteen thirty three.
That's more than a decade before the NBA had its
first season. It's like when you look at the phenomenon
of Philippine basketball from the perspective of Little Pedro or
any pinoid growing up surrounded by this ubiquitous, seemingly limitless
love for the game, there's nothing really surprising or mysterious
(12:34):
about the country's passion. Sure, in twenty twenty three, the
Philippine national team is no longer competing for medals at
the Olympics and World Championships, and the country has never
produced a home grown NBA player, But Filipinos sports heroes
have been basketball players since before Americans had NBA players
to look up to. The little Pedro of today has
(12:55):
grown up with hoop dreams passed down to him from
his parents' grandparents, probably even great grandparents. That's generations of
neighborhood tournament rivalries, generations of rooting for the family's favored
college and PBA teams, generations of stories passed down about
the greatness of local legends with names like Khloe Loizaga,
(13:17):
Ramone Fernandez, Alan Kadik, and Samboy limb One could travel
the world, and nowhere find anything quite like Philippine basketball.
After the break gets time for the Gala glesson and
a quick debate over the origins of the side step.
I think you meant euro step past. It's time for
(13:44):
this week's Tagala glesson. Are you ready? Game? Nah? I
see you've got prepared all right? I love it. Okay,
let's start with this. Say that back to me, sa
sa Eric, Oh pull sah, Eric. I think I got it,
(14:05):
But what are you talking about? Exactly? Oh? You got it?
You got it really well, you're really getting good at this.
That one's a little old school, probably the sort of
thing your uncle might say while watching a PBA game.
It literally means sit book in the air er er,
but roughly, you know, it means hang time. And it
describes a type of move that made household names out
(14:28):
of players who were gifted enough to do it. Basically,
the players were the Doctor Jay's and Michael Jordan's and
Dominique Wilkins's of Philippine basketball in the eighties and nineties,
aggressive athletic wings whose bread and butter on the court
was attacking the rim and thrilling crowds with creative finishes
above the rim. Only the PBA versions of those NBA
(14:51):
icons weren't between six six and six eight like their
American counterparts. They were more like six one or six
three on a me good day. And you know, players
like Samboy, Limb, Bong Alvarez and Veryhelminess would elevate a
step or two inside the free throw line, float through
traffic as if they were sitting on a cloud, and
(15:13):
then flip gorgeous layups through the net, under and around
the outstretched arms of defenders. Hence the term adding here
see for yourself, Sambo Limb, Barty, that's the worst thing
the boys the following the open mark because you always
want the biggest strong the skywalker and I understand why
(15:41):
smooth with it, nice hang time using the glass. Also
with the crossover and the gather. Oh, the misdirection and
absolutely adjusting in the air. I'm impressed the fact too
that his skywalking is different from like NBA skywalking, where
(16:02):
you know, in the NBA's going up, up up up him.
He kind of just goes slightly up, but he kind
of just stays there for a while. I think is
why he's so special. Yes, all right, roll the tape
on my man Verhell meness, let's do it. Get away
(16:24):
a little up an under action on the double rim, right, yeah,
the double rim in the Pro League. He's quick, by
the way, can can I can I give a shout
out to aerial Voyager as a as a nickname. It
sounds really cool, aerial voyager, right it translates to someone
who's ridden a plane. Yeah, well yeah, I mean I
was actually thinking like a spaceship like it was giving
(16:46):
me Star Wars vibes, and I was like, this guy
is you know, Darth Vader coming for you. No, he's sturdy. Yeah,
he's a he's a strong dude. Oh with the fake out,
he was very nimble. You can go around the all
that not find this many highlight layoups on a mixtape.
But we got a dunk. We've mastered the layout. But yeah,
(17:06):
he can. We mastered the layout. I mean, Nico, watching
NBA basketball is a big part of my job. I
mean I watched thirty games per week at minimum, all
played at the highest level of the pro game. And
you know, I just saw PBA guards finishing at the
rim with enough style and skill to impress job Brant
(17:26):
Like I get that we don't see many drives like
those in the NBA because players in the league generally
finish above the rim. But all those spins and up
and unders and kiss us off the glass. It's like
something out of like an alternative universe. Yeah, the jelly
started here. The jelly started here. For all intensive purposes.
(17:47):
Guys like Sam Boy and Verhell grew up in a
parallel basketball universe to the NBA guards of their era.
They didn't have access to hours and hours of game
tape to study, you know, the moves of Doctor J
David Thompson or George Gervin. The stars of the PBA
had plenty of their own hang time to work with,
and they created their own language of acrobatic finishes, moves
(18:10):
that had a lot in common with the n BASE style,
but also included flourishes that an American pro might have
never seen in his entire career. Now, are you ready
for the move that Philippine big men developed in their
parallel universe. It's not quite as glamorous as but we
call it the Killikili shot. Wait, why does it sound
(18:34):
so familiar? Oh? If your mom ever tickled you as
a kid, she probably went for your that means under arm.
So the killikilli shot in Philippine basketball literally refers to
a low post move called the under arm shot. Watch this,
What do we got here? What that looks like a mistake.
(19:00):
He's literally tossing up an underhand layup almost from his knees.
For everybody who's listening, what happens is you're posting up
right and then when you turn, your defender has his
hands up. You take the ball, You kind of squeeze
it into his armpit area, like by his side, under
his arm and you just kind of like flick it
(19:21):
from there. There's no way an armpit is going to
block a shot. It's super easy, super easy from up.
If I get it near his palm, he can block it.
But if I squeeze it through like right the side,
right right millimeters like under his armpit, that's yeah, that's
great offense up and under the armpit. Yeah, that just
(19:43):
that looks like some sort of like ballet move. That's
a graceful. I think it's like the opposite a graceful.
But also it goes in. So two points is two
points crafty? There, it is crafty. That was Yeah, I
(20:04):
don't know exactly what that was. But crafty sounds about right.
That's his shot too, That's his shot. That's that's all
when I've covered since he was in college, like he's
been making that shot, like he like his livelihood is
that shot. If it works, it works. I mean it
definitely wasn't pretty. How did he even create an angle
for that shot while scooping it under his defender's armpit.
(20:26):
The armpit is the key. The arm pit is the key.
If the defender didn't extend his armpit to be exposed
like that, there wouldn't have been an angle for the shot. Yeah,
pbe big men kind of got the short end of
the basketball multiverse stick compared to the slashing, levitating, floating,
aerial voyaging guards. But don't be fooled. Takes a lot
(20:48):
of guile and skill to execute such an awkward move
in games and in terms of the game inside the
game and players seeking a mental edge over their opponents.
Just imagine how a defender feels giving up two points
and usually and one on an ugly underhand flip that
tickles his arm pinion. The humiliation alone might take his
(21:11):
head out of the game. Yeah, I'd be picking up
flagrant files after two buckets. That's why I don't doubt it.
The reason we're highlighting terms like and the kill shot
is to show how sheer physical distance between the Philippines
and North America created the conditions for Filipinos to develop
a unique, homegrown style of play that, like the nation's
(21:35):
love of the game, was unlike anything else in the world.
But you know what they say, life finds a way,
and over time, despite huge geographic and technological barriers, the
Philippines and its white hot basketball culture were destined to
come in contact with the best league in the world
and Nigo. Now, isn't there some story about how a
(21:55):
Filipino might have inspired the skyhook? I mean, yeah, there is,
but you know, it always seemed like kind of more
of a tall tale rather than a clear example of
Philippine basketball in the NBA influencing each other. But here's
the story anyway. So Kurt Bachman a big man who
(22:17):
played for the Philippine national team in the nineteen sixties.
He was known as mister hook Shot, and a rumor
went around that a young Llewell Cinder before he famously
changed his name to Kareem Abdul Jabbar had observed Bachman
working on his go to move when Team Philippines held
training camp at UCLA before heading to an international competition.
(22:38):
Some folks speculated that the site of Bachman draining hook
shots convinced young Kareem to perfect the sky hook. I
mean imaginative. That were true, a pinoy planting the seat
that Kareem cultivated into the most unstoppable scoring weapon in
(23:00):
basketball history. It would be the ultimate feather in our
hoops loving nation's cap. But if it sounds too good
to be true, that's because it probably is. Kareem never
confirmed the story, and Bachmann was far from the only
player with a hook shot in his bag back then.
This one never quite passed the smell test. And by
(23:20):
the way, if this even had an ounce of truth
in it, trust that we would have been telling the
story over and over and over and over again at
every chance we get. But there is another move, though,
one that's far more common in today's NBA than Kareem skyhook,
that was a staple of Philippine basketball long before it
showed up on us turf. We call it the side step,
(23:43):
but in the league and around the world, it's called
the euro step step the euro Are we really about
to try and swipe credit on that one from Manu Jenoble,
the man who's so beloved in NBA and international hoop
(24:03):
circles that he's practically up for sainthood. No no, no, no, no,
no praise Manu. This is a Manu loving podcast. I
didn't mean to say that Filipinos are responsible for bringing
the eurostep to the NBA. If we did it, it
would be known by its correct name, or at least
its local name, besidestep. But I, along with countless other
(24:25):
Philippine basketball lovers, swear to the high heavens that Pinois
guards have been executing that same perky, jerky, horizontal footwork
to shake defenders off and set up wide open layups
for decades. Manu popularized the move in the NBA, but
We've been sidestepping for as long as any other basketball
nation in the world. And then the sidestepped moved by
(24:47):
Scottie Thompson. I'm sure there are other places and other
players that say they were doing it before Manu did it.
And if sidesteps specialist elm Reyus had turned pro in
the NBA in nineteen eighty five, stead of the PBA.
Then NBA players might have adopted the move fifteen years
before Man who brought his electric games to the States.
(25:09):
All Right, I'm convinced, but I still think we could
use a second opinion on this one. Unfortunately, Sev Sarmenta,
the beloved Philippine sports broadcaster who's been among the nation's
top play by play announcers for the past forty years,
is here to walk us through the Philippines claim over
the Sidesteps origin STORYLUS makes another US recital drive definitely
(25:31):
a little bing Alvin Patrimonio. Sev told us about the
first players he noticed doing the eurostep, even before elmur Reyus.
I do distinctly remember watching a player named Danni Florencio
who played in the old up against the legend Sonny Jaworski.
(25:52):
They had great U e ust battles, and I distinctly
remember because I wanted to play like Danni Florencio. He
had such a move, which is probably a forerunner of
the euro as we know it today. There's also the
possibility and I'm sure Sonny Jeworski had his own version
(26:13):
of the euro But back then then, even the play
by play announcers back then, I've gone from Willie Hernandez
they kill the phone, so Jackersia. They called it the
side step because it looked like you were doing a
sidestep instead of moving forward. Then, as you mentioned, elm
Reus brought it to a fine art and everybody thought
(26:35):
it was traveling. Actually, speaking of name discrepancies, Sev explained
how el Marius's sidestep move came to be referred to
as his Marco Polo move by PBA announcers. The late
Pingue panks and loved to coin phrases, and he would
probably watch a ton of NBA games, and he was
a wordsmith by his own legend. You know, he had
(26:57):
worked in advertising, he was a DJ, and he left
to coin these phrases. He go of course coined cardiac
finished and all those other great terms. He felt that
it was not indirect reference to the move of elma Reyus.
He felt that all traveling violations were Marco Polo moves.
It's not one of his best lines actually, but the
(27:19):
Marco Polo move was because Marco Polo was a traveler,
and therefore all traveling violations were a Marco Polo moved.
It was not specific to Elma Reius' move. Everybody thought
that Elmer's move was traveling. Even I thought it was
traveling until people got used to it because he did
not change his favot food. Call it what you want,
(27:40):
but it's interesting how the PBA in the NBA developed
in parallel, separated by the Pacific. You've got that uniquely
crafty PBA style with their under arm shots, floating layups,
and an occasional questionable elbow. Their skills are a wild
and wooly open for basketball, but you also see familiar
(28:00):
moves like the eurostep or the hook shot. Historically, when
NBA games were less accessible in the Philippines, it was
challenging to the leagues to influence one another, which is
how we're still able to debate the origins of the
side step. But nowadays it's a different story. NBA's influenced
the PBA, no question about it, because one not, especially nowadays,
(28:21):
the game is everywhere. We see it in the morning,
we see it in the evening, we see it on
our devices. Let Filipino players or Filippino fans loved the dunk.
We cannot dunk because of our size, are high and everything,
(28:43):
but We can definitely do the crossover, dribble between the legs.
We can do our own version of Lebron and Michael Jordans.
We can dribble between the legs. Take blind or behind
the back passes. Oh well, what that is an honoraboy
bubble pass. Our coaches also adopt the NBA place the
(29:03):
language they use there, let's use the elevator. There's the
elevator doors right there. And Curry it took two screens
to free him up. We see that with the Warriors,
of course. Then there's the ball movement of San Antonio.
Almost every PREBA coach has some virgin of the motion offense.
And there's the triangle offense, which thinkhon has mastered and
(29:25):
has made certain adjustments, has tinkered with it, has made
these own derivations. Don't worry, we'll hear more about that
from the legendary coach Tim Cohen after the break. Before
we go, though, Cassidy, do you remember Betamax tapes? Are
you talking about like the precursor to VHS tapes? What
is this? Nineteen seventy five thanks to Sony's revolutionary Betamax
(29:48):
deck which hooks up to any TV set. Now you
can automatically videotape your favorite show even when you're not
home and watch it anytime you want. No, not that
far back, we're going back to the nineties. We're talking
free internet, Manila. I always tell our guy it's a
(30:11):
quote I've learned from Phil Jackson where he goes, I'm
all about moving forward. If it works out, great, if
it doesn't work out, great, But I'm all about moving forward.
And that's one of his quotes that I took from him,
And when I learned that as a coach, that's the
one that really moved me up to another level. I'm
not even going to pretend to play it cool on
(30:32):
this one, Cassidy. I'm straight up giddy, almost jealous even
but you get to hear it coached him Cohen story
for the first time. I don't know if there's a
better or more mind blowing example of the NBA touching
Philippine basketball from Afar. I've known coached him for years
now and consider him a great friend. And even though
he's an American by birth, his basketball life has almost
(30:54):
entirely been shaped and has taken place in the Philippines.
You see, his family moved to the country from Oregon
when he was just nine years old, and he learned
the game first as a high school player and then
as a coach on this side of the Pacific. The
setup for his story is that back in the early nineties,
when he was at the beginning of his PBA coaching career,
a young Tim Cohen went looking for an offense that
(31:17):
would fit the way he wanted his team to play.
He found what he was looking for in the dominant
NBA force of that era, MJ. Phil Jackson and your
Chicago Bulls, and the inspiration he took from that team
set him on a path so becoming the winningest head
coach in PBA history, with more championships on his resume
(31:38):
than anyone else who's ever walked the sidelines on a
PBA court. Hold up say Less and save some for
coached him. That was a defensive minded guy. And so
I was really searching for an offense. And you know,
I tried a Bobby Knight type of motion, and I
(31:58):
tried doing sets, and there was just nothing that really
appealed to me. And I was really looking for something different.
And I just happened to be watching the Bulls off
that feed a military feed and they were the popular team,
you know, because Michael had just started there, Bill Jackson
had come Tech Swinner was there, and they were starting
to run the triangle, and at that time, no one
(32:20):
was really putting the name to what they were running.
And it was just like an epiphany for me. I
saw it, and it was just something there that I
really liked. And I say now, but it was at
a time at that point where I just felt like
the Bulls were doing something different. The Bulls were like
dancing and everybody else was playing basketball, but the Bulls
(32:43):
were so coordinated, you know, they just looked like they
were dancing out there, and it just appealed to me,
and so I started to break it down. I recorded it,
and I broke it down pass forward and rewind, trying
to find the different passwords they were making, the patterns
they were doing, and eventually I just started to learn
the system and I started to incorporate it with what
(33:06):
we were doing here in my own team in the PBA. Ironically,
that year that I tried to implement the triangle without
really knowing it was the worst year in the history
of our team, and I almost got fired. In fact,
that probably got fired for like ten minutes, and then
I got rehired. But the following year we had our
(33:28):
best year, and then the following year after that we
started winning championships with it. And I guess that's where
it all started, was right there. Coach Tim has probably
told me that story a dozen times. I probably asked
for that story all dozen of those times, because every
time it feels like a revelation, a tale of basketball
(33:49):
devotion and ingenuity and cultural exchange that probably couldn't happen
anywhere else but here in the Philippines. Well, it's ingrained,
I think from the it really is. It's hard to
understand that, but it's been ingrained too. When you're in
the cradle, there's a basketball. Someone puts a basketball in
(34:10):
your cradle, and you sleep with that basketball, and you
grow up. And when you're growing up and you're a
little kid here, your parents are watching the TV and
they're jumping, enjoying, and you don't want to what the
heck is going on, So you get interested and you
start watching, and before you know it, you are jumping
enjoy for joy. And then you're having your kids, and
your kids are going through that same process and it's
(34:32):
been a generational. It really has been generational, and it's
so long before me. It's really it's in a way
it's sad, but you know, but for the basketball people,
it's exciting. It's the only game in town. We don't
really have spectator sports. We don't have baseball as a
spectator sport. We don't have obviously American football. We don't
have soccer as a spectator as a true spectator sport.
(34:57):
About the only thing that we really have is boxing
through many pack yao. And we have you know, women's volleyball,
which is which is really amazing. You know, I walked
the streets and you know, literally everybody knows me because
I'm on Primetime TV three or four times a week,
you know, and they're all watching the games. And you know,
(35:17):
I always kids spo that he's of course referring to
coach Eric Spoelstra of the Miami Heat. I coached a
game of fifty four thousand people watched the game. We
were at the Philippine Arena playing I guess arrival at
the time, moralco and we went to the Filipino Arena
and played a game six where we had fifty two
thousand people, and then we went and played Game seven
(35:39):
and had fifty four thousand people watching games. Imagine that,
fifty four thousand people watching a basketball game. I mean
the regular US you know arena, an NBA arena, and
it's like, you know, twenty twenty five, twenty three, you know,
this was fifty three thousand people. So it's just ingrained
in the everyday life. I remember growing up here and
(36:00):
we always used to talk about you know, there's religion,
there's politics, and there's basketball, and those are three things
you talk about in the Philippines. Talking to coach Tim
was also a great way for us to dip our
toes into the PBA because starting with episode three, we're
diving head first into stories about the former NBA players
(36:21):
who have come to Manila and found basketball second lives
as high scoring imports. I see they talked to the
coaches in the front front of the bus. He gets
out and he talks to them and then he sends word.
He says, Andy rubbed, come out. My heart drops. I
think I'm gonna get kidnapped and health ransom. Sometimes imports
(36:42):
would lie about their heights, and Kenneth Olwood just clarifying
and crystallize what this really the truth. It was definitely
the roughest, tumblest, puritiest form of basketball I've ever played in.
So my first year, you know, I got cut a
lot because I never backed down from putting my face
(37:04):
right there, and I wasn't smart enough to figure out
how to get my face out of the way and
still get the job done
One day I had an idea. I called the boys
to the gym, divided them up into teams of nine,
and gave them an old soccer ball. I showed them
two peach baskets i'd nailed up at each end of
the gym. I told them the idea was to throw
the ball into the opposing team's peach basket. I blow
(00:20):
a whistle, and the first game of basketball began. Ten
years later, basketball was being played all over the country,
and in nineteen thirty six I saw it played for
the first time at the Olympic Games. And the whole
thing started with a couple of peach baskets I put
up in a little Jim forty eight years ago. I
(00:42):
guess it just goes to show what you can do
if you had That's the voice of doctor James Naysmith
from a nineteen thirty nine radio interview describing the day
in eighteen ninety one when he invented the game of basketball.
It's crazy to think of how basketball has grown here
(01:02):
in the States and around the world since its beginnings
at that YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts. What's even wilder is
that only about ten years after nay Smith hung those
peach baskets and referee the first game of basketball ever played.
In eighteen ninety one, there were already reports of American
(01:22):
soldiers spreading the gospel of hoop in Manila and other
parts of the Philippines. The history of Philippine basketball goes
back more than one hundred years. It's a long story,
but you need to know it if you want to
understand the role basketball and the MBA playing the Philippines today.
This is episode two of Hoops Paradise, the Philippines Love
(01:45):
of the Game, brought to you by iHeartRadio and the MBA.
Hey everyone, my name is Cassidy Hopth. I'm a reporter
for ESPN covering the NBA both on the sidelines and
in studio. I'm also have Filipino. My mother is from
the Philippines, but I've only been back to the Philippines twice.
(02:07):
We're here to learn more about basketball in the Philippines
and to help us do that, my partner in crime,
Nico Ramos. Hey, that's me. I'm here in the Philippines.
My official job designation as president of Cassidy Hubbard's fan Club,
but also I'm an editor for Slam in the Philippines,
and I work for a basketball company full time. That's
(02:30):
actually what I do at Titan. We're going to take
a deep dive into anything and everything that has to
do with basketball and the Philippines. To figure out how
basketball became the cultural force that it is today in
the Philippines. We have to go way back. First. We
need to explain some historical basics about the centuries of
(02:50):
first Spanish and then American colonial rule that preceded Philippine
independence in nineteen forty six. It reminds me of something
I've always wondered about. The line that appears in so
many of the Philippine travel guide books produced here in
the States. Were explains the colonial period by saying, the
Philippines spent three hundred years in a convent and fifty
(03:15):
years in Hollywood. Look, if you have to boil down
the nation's history into a snappy one liner that you
can print onto some guide books, you could really do worse.
The line does capture something real about the colonial whiplash
that Filipinos lived through, beginning with the Spanish period's conversion
of the Philippines to a majority Catholic nation and then
(03:38):
giving way to the go go commercialism of American culture.
Of course, those three hundred and fifty years of colonial
history are also filled with stories of Filipino resistance and
nation building that don't come across when we focus solely
on which foreign power impose its rule on the country
at a given time, or how Filipinos have adopted parts
(04:00):
of Spanish an American don't forget the Japanese influence and
adapted them over time to create cultural hybrids that exist
only in the Philippines. Let's take, for example, something we
hold near and dear to our hearts, adubo, only taking
us two episodes before we brought up a double. It's
(04:22):
the unofficial dish of the Philippines. It's a very weird
example for us to start with. But you know, play
along with me here, trust me, you don't have to
talk me into adobo. Just though the chicken and pork
in a pot with soy sauce, you know, vinegar, some
bay leaves a whole grip of garlic massarat, Yes exactly.
(04:42):
It's something that we all grew up with and it's
probably something that we all still cook at home. But
every few years here in the Philippines, we go through
the same public debate about the origins of adubo, which
was introduced during the Spanish colonial era, of course, and
the sides are always the same, right. One group argues
that adobo doesn't deserve its reputation as a national dish
(05:06):
because it's not a native recipe, and the other side
kind of rolls its eyes and says, you still eat
it though. Right. One of the country's great writers, the
late Nickoaquin, even wrote about the adobo debate in an
essay collection published almost forty five years ago. We've been
fighting about this for this long, but here's the quote
that really captures his point. If you tell the Pinoia
(05:29):
on the street that adobo is but a thin veneer
of westernization, the pinoia may retort that, as far as
he's concerned, adobo is as Filipino as his very own guts.
And indeed, one could travel the world and nowhere find
anything quite like Philippine adobo. It's the same for other
colonial influences on Philippine culture. Philippine Catholicism is not Spanish Catholicism.
(05:54):
Philippine English definitely is into American English, and Philippine basketball,
I'm sure isn't the American game. The US may have
introduced the sports, thank you very much, but we definitely
made it our own. And that's where our man, doctor
Lou Antealihau comes in. When it comes to the early
history of Philippine basketball, our expertise only go so far.
(06:18):
We can get things started with the basic timeline like this.
Spain seeded ownership of LUs East Las Philippine US to
the United States in eighteen ninety eight at the end
of the Spanish American War. The US actually paid Spain
twenty million dollars to purchase the territory. The promotion of
sports was an important facet of US colonial rule, and
(06:38):
basketball arrived in the Philippines in the early nineteen hundreds.
American soldiers were the first to spread the game along
with other sports. After the Philippine American War, they moved
to Manila as well to look after some of the
needs of American soldiers. We caught up with Professor Lou Antelihau,
(06:58):
the foremost expert the colonial roots of basketball in the Philippines,
to fill in some of the details. So they set
up camp in Manila. But then ten years after they
decided to set up an actual YMCA in Manila to
cater to mainly American and European citizens young men who
live in Manila during that time. So that's how it starts.
(07:21):
Basketball was entertainment for Americans and Europeans in Manila, with
Filipinos spectating. Filipinos didn't officially get off the sidelines and
start hooping until nineteen ten. In nineteen ten, there's this
Physical Education Instructor YMCA missionary who was assigned to Manila.
(07:44):
He was coach a basketball coach in the University of
Illinois before that. His name is Ellwood Brown, and so
Ellwood Brown formalized you know, the introduction of basketball in
the Philippines. He organized a YMCA team in By nineteen eleven,
hoops had been added to the fized curriculum in the
new American run public school system. Here's a twist in
(08:08):
that early guide for teachers, basketball was suggested as an
activity for schoolgirls who were considered too delicate for baseball
or track and field. In nineteen twenty four, universities in
Manila established their own NCAA, and college hoops were an
immediate hit as a spectator sport for well to do
you know it's in the Capitol. That started the popularity
(08:30):
in basketball because college students are seen as you know,
educated and you know, they're the future of the nation,
and basketball has taken on this connotation as a modern
sports and therefore part of modernity, and taking part in
basketball is like taking part of something new, something modern,
(08:51):
something exciting. It's not a stretch to say that Filipinos
learned to play basketball at a high level before almost
every other nation but the United States, and that head
start made the national team international powerhouses in that era.
A few years after that, they dominated, you know, the
local competitions. From nineteen thirteen to nineteen thirty four, the
(09:14):
Philippines won gold gold at nine of the first ten
basketball tournaments. At a biannual regional competition called the Far
Eastern Championship Games. In nineteen thirty six, we were among
the nations to participate in the first Olympic basketball tournament,
and that team went four and one and deserved to medal.
(09:36):
Eighteen years after that, we did just that at the
nineteen fifty four Pheble World Championships, a team led by
Carlos Colloi. The big difference. Loizaga still considered by some,
including myself, to be the greatest player in the country's
history because of the glory he brought us on the
international stage, that team, led by that man claimed bronze,
(09:58):
and that's still the finish an Asian team has ever
achieved at a world level turn and all throughout that
half century of success, the Filipino's love of the game
just kept growing and growing. Basketball is a major cultural
force has existed far longer in the Philippines than it
did in the States and maybe any other country in
(10:20):
the world. It's a global game here and now in
twenty twenty three, and every year as more and more
international players join NBA rosters, it becomes clear that the
rest of the world has caught the bug. But when
you go back to the advent of the sport, it
really sounds like Filipinos were patient zero for basketball fever.
(10:41):
I actually pulled up one of my favorite quotes from
an early legend of the Philippine games from an article
look at Me, citing my sources in nineteen thirty three
and written by Ambroscho Padilia, who would go on to
be captain of the nineteen thirty six Olympic team and
then serve in the philip Senate after his playing career,
(11:02):
by the way, way too overachieve. Seriously, he says, if
you want to know where a little Pedro is at
the sizzling hour of two in the afternoon, amble to
the nearest basketball court, and there you will find him
judiciously throwing a bouncing ball into a hoop. The ambition
of every healthy boy now is to be a basketball player.
His hero is no longer the baseballer, but the basketballer.
(11:27):
How is anyone supposed to judiciously shoot jump shots? Like?
What does that even mean? Was little Pedro also practicing
sensible layups and prudent crossovers out there? Like, who's got
the most judicious shot in the NBA right now? First
of all, if your crossover is prudent, it's not working.
(11:49):
I think that's why I never made it. I think
my crossover was too prudent, It was too respectful out there.
But seriously, it is amazing to think that basketball was
already a major force in Philippine life, with heated college
tournaments and thriving semipro commercial leagues and a national team
preparing to make its debut on the Olympic stage. All
(12:11):
the way back to Padilia's day, I mean nineteen thirty three.
That's more than a decade before the NBA had its
first season. It's like when you look at the phenomenon
of Philippine basketball from the perspective of Little Pedro or
any pinoid growing up surrounded by this ubiquitous, seemingly limitless
love for the game, there's nothing really surprising or mysterious
(12:34):
about the country's passion. Sure, in twenty twenty three, the
Philippine national team is no longer competing for medals at
the Olympics and World Championships, and the country has never
produced a home grown NBA player, But Filipinos sports heroes
have been basketball players since before Americans had NBA players
to look up to. The little Pedro of today has
(12:55):
grown up with hoop dreams passed down to him from
his parents' grandparents, probably even great grandparents. That's generations of
neighborhood tournament rivalries, generations of rooting for the family's favored
college and PBA teams, generations of stories passed down about
the greatness of local legends with names like Khloe Loizaga,
(13:17):
Ramone Fernandez, Alan Kadik, and Samboy limb One could travel
the world, and nowhere find anything quite like Philippine basketball.
After the break gets time for the Gala glesson and
a quick debate over the origins of the side step.
I think you meant euro step past. It's time for
(13:44):
this week's Tagala glesson. Are you ready? Game? Nah? I
see you've got prepared all right? I love it. Okay,
let's start with this. Say that back to me, sa
sa Eric, Oh pull sah, Eric. I think I got it,
(14:05):
But what are you talking about? Exactly? Oh? You got it?
You got it really well, you're really getting good at this.
That one's a little old school, probably the sort of
thing your uncle might say while watching a PBA game.
It literally means sit book in the air er er,
but roughly, you know, it means hang time. And it
describes a type of move that made household names out
(14:28):
of players who were gifted enough to do it. Basically,
the players were the Doctor Jay's and Michael Jordan's and
Dominique Wilkins's of Philippine basketball in the eighties and nineties,
aggressive athletic wings whose bread and butter on the court
was attacking the rim and thrilling crowds with creative finishes
above the rim. Only the PBA versions of those NBA
(14:51):
icons weren't between six six and six eight like their
American counterparts. They were more like six one or six
three on a me good day. And you know, players
like Samboy, Limb, Bong Alvarez and Veryhelminess would elevate a
step or two inside the free throw line, float through
traffic as if they were sitting on a cloud, and
(15:13):
then flip gorgeous layups through the net, under and around
the outstretched arms of defenders. Hence the term adding here
see for yourself, Sambo Limb, Barty, that's the worst thing
the boys the following the open mark because you always
want the biggest strong the skywalker and I understand why
(15:41):
smooth with it, nice hang time using the glass. Also
with the crossover and the gather. Oh, the misdirection and
absolutely adjusting in the air. I'm impressed the fact too
that his skywalking is different from like NBA skywalking, where
(16:02):
you know, in the NBA's going up, up up up him.
He kind of just goes slightly up, but he kind
of just stays there for a while. I think is
why he's so special. Yes, all right, roll the tape
on my man Verhell meness, let's do it. Get away
(16:24):
a little up an under action on the double rim, right, yeah,
the double rim in the Pro League. He's quick, by
the way, can can I can I give a shout
out to aerial Voyager as a as a nickname. It
sounds really cool, aerial voyager, right it translates to someone
who's ridden a plane. Yeah, well yeah, I mean I
was actually thinking like a spaceship like it was giving
(16:46):
me Star Wars vibes, and I was like, this guy
is you know, Darth Vader coming for you. No, he's sturdy. Yeah,
he's a he's a strong dude. Oh with the fake out,
he was very nimble. You can go around the all
that not find this many highlight layoups on a mixtape.
But we got a dunk. We've mastered the layout. But yeah,
(17:06):
he can. We mastered the layout. I mean, Nico, watching
NBA basketball is a big part of my job. I
mean I watched thirty games per week at minimum, all
played at the highest level of the pro game. And
you know, I just saw PBA guards finishing at the
rim with enough style and skill to impress job Brant
(17:26):
Like I get that we don't see many drives like
those in the NBA because players in the league generally
finish above the rim. But all those spins and up
and unders and kiss us off the glass. It's like
something out of like an alternative universe. Yeah, the jelly
started here. The jelly started here. For all intensive purposes.
(17:47):
Guys like Sam Boy and Verhell grew up in a
parallel basketball universe to the NBA guards of their era.
They didn't have access to hours and hours of game
tape to study, you know, the moves of Doctor J
David Thompson or George Gervin. The stars of the PBA
had plenty of their own hang time to work with,
and they created their own language of acrobatic finishes, moves
(18:10):
that had a lot in common with the n BASE style,
but also included flourishes that an American pro might have
never seen in his entire career. Now, are you ready
for the move that Philippine big men developed in their
parallel universe. It's not quite as glamorous as but we
call it the Killikili shot. Wait, why does it sound
(18:34):
so familiar? Oh? If your mom ever tickled you as
a kid, she probably went for your that means under arm.
So the killikilli shot in Philippine basketball literally refers to
a low post move called the under arm shot. Watch this,
What do we got here? What that looks like a mistake.
(19:00):
He's literally tossing up an underhand layup almost from his knees.
For everybody who's listening, what happens is you're posting up
right and then when you turn, your defender has his
hands up. You take the ball, You kind of squeeze
it into his armpit area, like by his side, under
his arm and you just kind of like flick it
(19:21):
from there. There's no way an armpit is going to
block a shot. It's super easy, super easy from up.
If I get it near his palm, he can block it.
But if I squeeze it through like right the side,
right right millimeters like under his armpit, that's yeah, that's
great offense up and under the armpit. Yeah, that just
(19:43):
that looks like some sort of like ballet move. That's
a graceful. I think it's like the opposite a graceful.
But also it goes in. So two points is two
points crafty? There, it is crafty. That was Yeah, I
(20:04):
don't know exactly what that was. But crafty sounds about right.
That's his shot too, That's his shot. That's that's all
when I've covered since he was in college, like he's
been making that shot, like he like his livelihood is
that shot. If it works, it works. I mean it
definitely wasn't pretty. How did he even create an angle
for that shot while scooping it under his defender's armpit.
(20:26):
The armpit is the key. The arm pit is the key.
If the defender didn't extend his armpit to be exposed
like that, there wouldn't have been an angle for the shot. Yeah,
pbe big men kind of got the short end of
the basketball multiverse stick compared to the slashing, levitating, floating,
aerial voyaging guards. But don't be fooled. Takes a lot
(20:48):
of guile and skill to execute such an awkward move
in games and in terms of the game inside the
game and players seeking a mental edge over their opponents.
Just imagine how a defender feels giving up two points
and usually and one on an ugly underhand flip that
tickles his arm pinion. The humiliation alone might take his
(21:11):
head out of the game. Yeah, I'd be picking up
flagrant files after two buckets. That's why I don't doubt it.
The reason we're highlighting terms like and the kill shot
is to show how sheer physical distance between the Philippines
and North America created the conditions for Filipinos to develop
a unique, homegrown style of play that, like the nation's
(21:35):
love of the game, was unlike anything else in the world.
But you know what they say, life finds a way,
and over time, despite huge geographic and technological barriers, the
Philippines and its white hot basketball culture were destined to
come in contact with the best league in the world
and Nigo. Now, isn't there some story about how a
(21:55):
Filipino might have inspired the skyhook? I mean, yeah, there is,
but you know, it always seemed like kind of more
of a tall tale rather than a clear example of
Philippine basketball in the NBA influencing each other. But here's
the story anyway. So Kurt Bachman a big man who
(22:17):
played for the Philippine national team in the nineteen sixties.
He was known as mister hook Shot, and a rumor
went around that a young Llewell Cinder before he famously
changed his name to Kareem Abdul Jabbar had observed Bachman
working on his go to move when Team Philippines held
training camp at UCLA before heading to an international competition.
(22:38):
Some folks speculated that the site of Bachman draining hook
shots convinced young Kareem to perfect the sky hook. I
mean imaginative. That were true, a pinoy planting the seat
that Kareem cultivated into the most unstoppable scoring weapon in
(23:00):
basketball history. It would be the ultimate feather in our
hoops loving nation's cap. But if it sounds too good
to be true, that's because it probably is. Kareem never
confirmed the story, and Bachmann was far from the only
player with a hook shot in his bag back then.
This one never quite passed the smell test. And by
(23:20):
the way, if this even had an ounce of truth
in it, trust that we would have been telling the
story over and over and over and over again at
every chance we get. But there is another move, though,
one that's far more common in today's NBA than Kareem skyhook,
that was a staple of Philippine basketball long before it
showed up on us turf. We call it the side step,
(23:43):
but in the league and around the world, it's called
the euro step step the euro Are we really about
to try and swipe credit on that one from Manu Jenoble,
the man who's so beloved in NBA and international hoop
(24:03):
circles that he's practically up for sainthood. No no, no, no, no,
no praise Manu. This is a Manu loving podcast. I
didn't mean to say that Filipinos are responsible for bringing
the eurostep to the NBA. If we did it, it
would be known by its correct name, or at least
its local name, besidestep. But I, along with countless other
(24:25):
Philippine basketball lovers, swear to the high heavens that Pinois
guards have been executing that same perky, jerky, horizontal footwork
to shake defenders off and set up wide open layups
for decades. Manu popularized the move in the NBA, but
We've been sidestepping for as long as any other basketball
nation in the world. And then the sidestepped moved by
(24:47):
Scottie Thompson. I'm sure there are other places and other
players that say they were doing it before Manu did it.
And if sidesteps specialist elm Reyus had turned pro in
the NBA in nineteen eighty five, stead of the PBA.
Then NBA players might have adopted the move fifteen years
before Man who brought his electric games to the States.
(25:09):
All Right, I'm convinced, but I still think we could
use a second opinion on this one. Unfortunately, Sev Sarmenta,
the beloved Philippine sports broadcaster who's been among the nation's
top play by play announcers for the past forty years,
is here to walk us through the Philippines claim over
the Sidesteps origin STORYLUS makes another US recital drive definitely
(25:31):
a little bing Alvin Patrimonio. Sev told us about the
first players he noticed doing the eurostep, even before elmur Reyus.
I do distinctly remember watching a player named Danni Florencio
who played in the old up against the legend Sonny Jaworski.
(25:52):
They had great U e ust battles, and I distinctly
remember because I wanted to play like Danni Florencio. He
had such a move, which is probably a forerunner of
the euro as we know it today. There's also the
possibility and I'm sure Sonny Jeworski had his own version
(26:13):
of the euro But back then then, even the play
by play announcers back then, I've gone from Willie Hernandez
they kill the phone, so Jackersia. They called it the
side step because it looked like you were doing a
sidestep instead of moving forward. Then, as you mentioned, elm
Reus brought it to a fine art and everybody thought
(26:35):
it was traveling. Actually, speaking of name discrepancies, Sev explained
how el Marius's sidestep move came to be referred to
as his Marco Polo move by PBA announcers. The late
Pingue panks and loved to coin phrases, and he would
probably watch a ton of NBA games, and he was
a wordsmith by his own legend. You know, he had
(26:57):
worked in advertising, he was a DJ, and he left
to coin these phrases. He go of course coined cardiac
finished and all those other great terms. He felt that
it was not indirect reference to the move of elma Reyus.
He felt that all traveling violations were Marco Polo moves.
It's not one of his best lines actually, but the
(27:19):
Marco Polo move was because Marco Polo was a traveler,
and therefore all traveling violations were a Marco Polo moved.
It was not specific to Elma Reius' move. Everybody thought
that Elmer's move was traveling. Even I thought it was
traveling until people got used to it because he did
not change his favot food. Call it what you want,
(27:40):
but it's interesting how the PBA in the NBA developed
in parallel, separated by the Pacific. You've got that uniquely
crafty PBA style with their under arm shots, floating layups,
and an occasional questionable elbow. Their skills are a wild
and wooly open for basketball, but you also see familiar
(28:00):
moves like the eurostep or the hook shot. Historically, when
NBA games were less accessible in the Philippines, it was
challenging to the leagues to influence one another, which is
how we're still able to debate the origins of the
side step. But nowadays it's a different story. NBA's influenced
the PBA, no question about it, because one not, especially nowadays,
(28:21):
the game is everywhere. We see it in the morning,
we see it in the evening, we see it on
our devices. Let Filipino players or Filippino fans loved the dunk.
We cannot dunk because of our size, are high and everything,
(28:43):
but We can definitely do the crossover, dribble between the legs.
We can do our own version of Lebron and Michael Jordans.
We can dribble between the legs. Take blind or behind
the back passes. Oh well, what that is an honoraboy
bubble pass. Our coaches also adopt the NBA place the
(29:03):
language they use there, let's use the elevator. There's the
elevator doors right there. And Curry it took two screens
to free him up. We see that with the Warriors,
of course. Then there's the ball movement of San Antonio.
Almost every PREBA coach has some virgin of the motion offense.
And there's the triangle offense, which thinkhon has mastered and
(29:25):
has made certain adjustments, has tinkered with it, has made
these own derivations. Don't worry, we'll hear more about that
from the legendary coach Tim Cohen after the break. Before
we go, though, Cassidy, do you remember Betamax tapes? Are
you talking about like the precursor to VHS tapes? What
is this? Nineteen seventy five thanks to Sony's revolutionary Betamax
(29:48):
deck which hooks up to any TV set. Now you
can automatically videotape your favorite show even when you're not
home and watch it anytime you want. No, not that
far back, we're going back to the nineties. We're talking
free internet, Manila. I always tell our guy it's a
(30:11):
quote I've learned from Phil Jackson where he goes, I'm
all about moving forward. If it works out, great, if
it doesn't work out, great, But I'm all about moving forward.
And that's one of his quotes that I took from him,
And when I learned that as a coach, that's the
one that really moved me up to another level. I'm
not even going to pretend to play it cool on
(30:32):
this one, Cassidy. I'm straight up giddy, almost jealous even
but you get to hear it coached him Cohen story
for the first time. I don't know if there's a
better or more mind blowing example of the NBA touching
Philippine basketball from Afar. I've known coached him for years
now and consider him a great friend. And even though
he's an American by birth, his basketball life has almost
(30:54):
entirely been shaped and has taken place in the Philippines.
You see, his family moved to the country from Oregon
when he was just nine years old, and he learned
the game first as a high school player and then
as a coach on this side of the Pacific. The
setup for his story is that back in the early nineties,
when he was at the beginning of his PBA coaching career,
a young Tim Cohen went looking for an offense that
(31:17):
would fit the way he wanted his team to play.
He found what he was looking for in the dominant
NBA force of that era, MJ. Phil Jackson and your
Chicago Bulls, and the inspiration he took from that team
set him on a path so becoming the winningest head
coach in PBA history, with more championships on his resume
(31:38):
than anyone else who's ever walked the sidelines on a
PBA court. Hold up say Less and save some for
coached him. That was a defensive minded guy. And so
I was really searching for an offense. And you know,
I tried a Bobby Knight type of motion, and I
(31:58):
tried doing sets, and there was just nothing that really
appealed to me. And I was really looking for something different.
And I just happened to be watching the Bulls off
that feed a military feed and they were the popular team,
you know, because Michael had just started there, Bill Jackson
had come Tech Swinner was there, and they were starting
to run the triangle, and at that time, no one
(32:20):
was really putting the name to what they were running.
And it was just like an epiphany for me. I
saw it, and it was just something there that I
really liked. And I say now, but it was at
a time at that point where I just felt like
the Bulls were doing something different. The Bulls were like
dancing and everybody else was playing basketball, but the Bulls
(32:43):
were so coordinated, you know, they just looked like they
were dancing out there, and it just appealed to me,
and so I started to break it down. I recorded it,
and I broke it down pass forward and rewind, trying
to find the different passwords they were making, the patterns
they were doing, and eventually I just started to learn
the system and I started to incorporate it with what
(33:06):
we were doing here in my own team in the PBA. Ironically,
that year that I tried to implement the triangle without
really knowing it was the worst year in the history
of our team, and I almost got fired. In fact,
that probably got fired for like ten minutes, and then
I got rehired. But the following year we had our
(33:28):
best year, and then the following year after that we
started winning championships with it. And I guess that's where
it all started, was right there. Coach Tim has probably
told me that story a dozen times. I probably asked
for that story all dozen of those times, because every
time it feels like a revelation, a tale of basketball
(33:49):
devotion and ingenuity and cultural exchange that probably couldn't happen
anywhere else but here in the Philippines. Well, it's ingrained,
I think from the it really is. It's hard to
understand that, but it's been ingrained too. When you're in
the cradle, there's a basketball. Someone puts a basketball in
(34:10):
your cradle, and you sleep with that basketball, and you
grow up. And when you're growing up and you're a
little kid here, your parents are watching the TV and
they're jumping, enjoying, and you don't want to what the
heck is going on, So you get interested and you
start watching, and before you know it, you are jumping
enjoy for joy. And then you're having your kids, and
your kids are going through that same process and it's
(34:32):
been a generational. It really has been generational, and it's
so long before me. It's really it's in a way
it's sad, but you know, but for the basketball people,
it's exciting. It's the only game in town. We don't
really have spectator sports. We don't have baseball as a
spectator sport. We don't have obviously American football. We don't
have soccer as a spectator as a true spectator sport.
(34:57):
About the only thing that we really have is boxing
through many pack yao. And we have you know, women's volleyball,
which is which is really amazing. You know, I walked
the streets and you know, literally everybody knows me because
I'm on Primetime TV three or four times a week,
you know, and they're all watching the games. And you know,
(35:17):
I always kids spo that he's of course referring to
coach Eric Spoelstra of the Miami Heat. I coached a
game of fifty four thousand people watched the game. We
were at the Philippine Arena playing I guess arrival at
the time, moralco and we went to the Filipino Arena
and played a game six where we had fifty two
thousand people, and then we went and played Game seven
(35:39):
and had fifty four thousand people watching games. Imagine that,
fifty four thousand people watching a basketball game. I mean
the regular US you know arena, an NBA arena, and
it's like, you know, twenty twenty five, twenty three, you know,
this was fifty three thousand people. So it's just ingrained
in the everyday life. I remember growing up here and
(36:00):
we always used to talk about you know, there's religion,
there's politics, and there's basketball, and those are three things
you talk about in the Philippines. Talking to coach Tim
was also a great way for us to dip our
toes into the PBA because starting with episode three, we're
diving head first into stories about the former NBA players
(36:21):
who have come to Manila and found basketball second lives
as high scoring imports. I see they talked to the
coaches in the front front of the bus. He gets
out and he talks to them and then he sends word.
He says, Andy rubbed, come out. My heart drops. I
think I'm gonna get kidnapped and health ransom. Sometimes imports
(36:42):
would lie about their heights, and Kenneth Olwood just clarifying
and crystallize what this really the truth. It was definitely
the roughest, tumblest, puritiest form of basketball I've ever played in.
So my first year, you know, I got cut a
lot because I never backed down from putting my face
(37:04):
right there, and I wasn't smart enough to figure out
how to get my face out of the way and
still get the job done
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com