The Philippine Basketball (–foul word(s) removed–)ociation through commissioner Chito Salud said that the PBA will pay Gilas Pilipinas players a special tribute for successfully fulfilling the country’s dream of ending 35 years of absence in the world championship.
During an interview with The Star, Commissioner Salud was quoted as saying that, “We’ll work on that. We’ll give them a special toast. We’ll present our heroes to our fans most probably on Sunday,” Salud told The STAR.
The Asia’s first professional basketball league, the PBA, had a huge contribution in Gilas Pilipinas’ success after they revised the approved policies and season calendar to accommodate PBA stars’ participating in the Philippines conquest of the silver medal in FIBA Asia 2013 Championships.
All of the Gilas Pilipinas players came from the PBA except for the naturalized center, Marcus Douthit, who suffered an injury during the semi-finals against South Korea. The PBA leadership themselves are overjoyed by Gilas’ feat.
The silver medal finish of a PBA-backed national team in Asian basketball is the country’s best medal finish since the time of Robert Jaworski’s mentor national basketball team to the 1990 Beijing Asian Games.
Photo Credit: @ej_grfx Twitter account
