Gilas Pilipinas: Like no other before him

Photo courtesy of pba-online.net

Here's a question: What to make of Gilas Pilipinas' Jayson Castro?

He has proven to be quicker on the basketball court than point guards L.A. Tenorio and Jimmy Alapag, he's just as big and strong (if not bigger in mass and stronger overall) than the shooters we chose to brought in with Gary David, Jeffrei Chan and Larry Fonacier and has shown a knack for blitzing his way to the hoop with relative ease despite the odds.

We've seen transcendent talent like this before, the closest probably being Rain or Shine's Paul Lee and Barangay Ginebra's Mark Caguioa in their rookie years. When it's clear as day that you just have a guy who simply out-everythings everyone else on the court when he both mind and body are right. Castro is just as fast as the PBA's top point guards, as able as your big shot scorer and, as proven by him ripping the ball off future NBA Hall of Famer Chris Paul (one steal is a fluke, but twice? Nah, that takes real skills and we doubt Paul would've let his guard down so easily the 2nd time), is a solid one-on-one defender when called upon.

But how will Castro combat the dreaded FIBA brand of basketball that rewards shooters and makes life a living hell for spectacular one-on-one slashers?

Gilas Pilipinas (probably based on a skewed Team USA blueprint) addressed this by playing at a faster pace than their opponents and minimizing all the nuances of any and all half-court chess matches (where the team goes to "save us Marcus Douthit" mode most of the time-- just saying). We've seen them try to play with someone of Castro's caliber before with some degree of success in Fil-Ams Sol Mercado and even Jared Dillinger. Those guys played the role of 6th man "sparkplug" to the hilt, abandoning their jumpshots in lieu of barreling into the lane or fishing for fouls. Honestly, it won't be too far off to say that Castro will probably have the same role come the FIBA Asia tournament.

But what we really love about the Castro selection is that he is arguably the biggest and strongest point guard we've had for a competition of this magnitude since the great former senator Robert Jaworski, Sr. A small concern of course is his decision making which could be downright high school-ish. Whenever he plays extended minutes, Castro has this odd tendency to force the issue and just try to out-quick his opponents instead of reading the situation properly (Talk 'n' Text fans know this very well; the time when Alapag is dusted off the bench to calm things down a notch or four).

Can Castro blitz his way to superstardom and lead Pilipinas to the medal round? We'll find out soon enough.