Pacific Rims

by Rafe Bartholomew

  These homemade courts and balls worn so smooth that the rubber seams and cobblestone grips vanished were essential clues to unlocking the riddle of basketball’s meaning in Philippine society. Jojo first played on courts like these in his hometown in northern Mindanao, where he grew up without television and could only follow his basketball idols by reading sports magazines. For the millions of Filipinos who adored basketball, the game was participatory, something they played and watched in their own communities. The measure of the nation’s passion wasn’t the number of fans who bought tickets to Alaska games, but the fact that everywhere in the country, even in remote barangays with few television sets and hardly any Internet access, tiny burgs that felt disconnected from the rest of the world, people played hoops. It truly was a way of life. I understood this. For me, the love of playing basketball—missing a long bank shot, then dashing back to stop the others team’s fast break, then rocketing back down the floor to finally score—trumped all.

  When I snapped out of my pseudospiritual trance, Dickie and Jojo were gone, and I wore myself out chasing them. Until then I had nursed my Gatorade responsibly and managed to stave off the light-headed tingle that heralded dehydration. The twenty-minute sprint to catch the coaches changed that. When I found them leaning on their bikes at the top of a hill, I was seeing spots. I downed what remained of my drink and scanned the slope for a place to find more fluids. Jojo must have seen the panic in my eyes, because he wandered into the bushes and returned with a gourdlike fruit called guyabano, which resembled a dark green football covered with knobby spikes. With a flick of his wrists he split the guyabano in two and handed half to me. I plunged my face into the fruit and started vacuuming the juice, sugar, and flesh as fast as possible. Every bite sent waves of vitality back through my body, and by the time I tossed the leftover green rind into the grass I felt normal. I looked at Jojo like he had just saved my life, but he was already moving downhill.

  We stopped at a small outdoor eatery where the trail met a paved street. Inside, a consortium of men in helmets and biker shorts sat at picnic tables, pounding Sprite and slurping bowls of lugaw, a hearty rice porridge seasoned with ginger and concealing hard-boiled eggs in its gooey depths. Once the cyclists recognized Jojo and Dickie, they formed a line to have their pictures taken with the ex-players. One father who had brought his son along was mimicking jump shots and dunks to explain why he was making the boy pose with the old-timers. After the autograph session ended, the three of us sat and ate. It was nearly noon, and we had a short ride back to the bike shop to return my rental and drive to Manila for practice. In the car, Lastimosa talked to me with a little more interest, like I’d earned some respect, not because I distinguished myself as a cyclist, but because I survived the ride without complaining.

  A few days after the mountain biking trip, Alaska’s season got off to an encouraging start. Although the team didn’t even reach the quarterfinals of the previous all-Filipino conference, it had high hopes for the import conference, partly thanks to Roe, and also because the league had snubbed Alaska in selecting players for the Philippine national team that was preparing for the Asian Olympic qualifiers later that year. Many stars from rival teams had been picked to play for the flag and would be skipping this conference to train for the tournament that could earn the Philippines an invitation to the 2008 Beijing Games. The nationals plucked only one player from Alaska’s roster, the versatile Filipino-American forward Tony dela Cruz, while other league powers lost as many as three starters. For the entire Alaska team, especially a former MVP still in his prime like Willie Miller, this was a slap in the face. In the eyes of the PBA higher-ups who controlled the Philippine team, all but one of Alaska’s players weren’t good enough. The Aces, with a mostly intact roster and a veteran import, looked to dominate the upcoming season and show the league its mistake.

  From the beginning, Alaska seemed capable of fulfilling their quest for revenge, beating the Talk ‘N Text Phone Pals and the Barangay Ginebra Gin-Kings in their first two games. Although both teams sent players to the Philippine team, their rosters were so laden with talent that they could wave goodbye to their starting backcourts and still expect to manhandle a struggling team like Alaska. Before the opener against Talk ‘N Text, Cone warned the Aces that having fewer stars on the Phone Pals’ roster might improve their chemistry and allow its gifted young players to have breakout seasons.

  Alaska, in fact, had few answers for the helter-skelter drives and one-handed floaters of Talk ’N Text’s Macmac Cardona or the mismatches created by their six-foot-six half-American swingman, Jay Washington. The key to the Aces’ win, however, was their team defense, which hounded the opposing import, J. J. Sullinger, into a nightmarish debut. There were few gaps in Sullinger’s offensive game. A strong and explosive lefty with a shooting touch, he could barrel through the lane and dunk over a crowd of big men or bang three-pointers from twenty-five feet. But he was young. Just twenty-four years old and months removed from his senior year at Ohio State University, this was Sullinger’s first PBA game, and he seemed overeager to prove his worth. It’s likely that he heard about the league’s cutthroat reputation and decided he needed to score 40 points. Cone, however, expected Sullinger to be aggressive and prepared Alaska’s defense. When Sullinger drove, helpers cut off his path to the basket. When he spun away from his man, most of the time he whirled right into the chest of another defender. When he elevated to shoot, one of Alaska’s import-stoppers, Nic Belasco or Reynel Hugnatan, always raised a hand to disrupt Sullinger’s release. On some plays it looked like the entire Alaska team was guarding Sullinger.

  The swarming defense confounded Sullinger. Back in the Big Ten, he probably would have responded to double and triple teams by passing, not by heaving ever more impossible shots. But perhaps the young player felt insecure in his first PBA game; he knew what was expected from imports, and he wasn’t delivering. So instead of letting his teammates pick up the scoring slack, Sullinger played right into Alaska’s hands and kept attempting acrobatic drives against four defenders and step-back three-pointers that even a legendary chucker like Kobe Bryant might consider bad shots. By the time Alaska eked out a 97-94 win, Sullinger had converted six of twenty-six shots.

  A few days later Alaska beat Ginebra. The Aces were facing another dynamic left-handed import in Rod Nealy, but this time they couldn’t contain his scoring. Nealy came close to netting 20 points in the first half while carrying Ginebra to a nine-point lead. Roe, who had been looking to create scoring opportunities for his teammates early in the game, became more offensive-minded in the second half. On several possessions he kept Alaska close by grabbing defensive rebounds and dribbling coast-to-coast to score on powerful layups. Roe pushed the ball upcourt like a runaway freight train, and no Ginebra player seemed willing or able to alter his path or take a charge. While he was having his way, however, the Ginebra shooter Sunday Salvacion24 was draining three-pointers as if his shooting hand was possessed by the higher power that inspired his name. Entering the fourth quarter, Alaska still trailed by five points.

  The Aces clawed ahead on the scoreboard with five minutes left, and from there the lead changed hands on nearly every possession until the clock ran out. The back-and-forth scoring created more suspense than the Alaska players’ wives and daughters could handle, and during the last minute many of them covered their faces with Alaska Milk banners. With twenty seconds to play and the game tied, Nealy drove against Roe and drew a foul. He made a free throw to put Ginebra ahead, but Alaska had time to run one last play to win the game. The ball went to guard Willie Miller, Alaska’s top local scorer, who spun into the lane and collided with Ginebra’s Ronald Tubid, who flopped backward, hoping to draw an offensive foul. The whistle never came, and Willie was left alone at the foul line. He flicked a jumper that skipped off the front of the rim to the backboard, then back to the front of the rim, and finally through the net. With three seconds left they were up one point. Alaska ended up winning 100-98, afte
r Willie harassed Ginebra’s inbounder into calling a timeout the Gin-Kings didn’t have and Alaska was awarded a technical foul shot.

  After the game the jubilant mood in the locker room was something the Aces hadn’t felt for a long time. The players wouldn’t settle down after the win. They kept jumping around, hugging each other, joking about the game and Willie’s lucky bounce. Asia Agcaoili, an actress and television host who rose to fame as a magazine sex columnist, wandered through the locker room with a camera crew to conduct interviews for a PBA lifestyle show. She sat next to Roe and stroked his muscle-bound upper body, then did the same with Poch’s sizable belly. It was the kind of attention that Ginebra, the league’s most popular team and defenders of the recently concluded all-Filipino championship, usually received. It was the glory that Jeff Cariaso promised to restore three years earlier, when Alaska traded to get him back from the Coca-Cola Tigers.

  The team’s surprising start set up a showdown in the next game against Red Bull Barako, which had also won its first two contests. Around the PBA, Red Bull was already being hyped as this conference’s team to beat. James Penny, the import who replaced Quemont Greer and led the team to a championship, had returned to defend his crown. The Barako supporting cast had also barely changed since last year’s title run, and during the two intervening all-Filipino conferences the Red Bull locals completed successful runs to the finals and semifinals. If Alaska was a contender this season, the team would have to prove it against Red Bull, who likewise would be eager to show the league that they were still dominant.

  Cone scheduled two consecutive days of pre-practice video sessions to scout Red Bull and develop a game plan for them. Typically, the team would only watch video on the day before a game, but Cone wanted to treat the Red Bull game with a sense of playoff urgency. That week, however, the team would have a particularly hard time focusing on the upcoming game because of the distraction caused by a criminal complaint filed against Alaska guard Willie Miller in his hometown of Olongapo City. Months before, Willie and three other men allegedly got into a road rage argument that escalated into Willie’s group beating the other motorist and stealing a bag from his car that contained more than $10,000 in Philippine pesos. Willie claimed that on the night in question he wasn’t even in Zambales, the province where the crime supposedly occurred. Instead, he said he was visiting neighboring Bataan. Nevertheless, he would be forced to miss two practices the week before Alaska played Red Bull to attend preliminary hearings at an Olongapo court.

  Willie’s absence at practice didn’t seem too detrimental to the team. A former league MVP and Alaska’s best overall player aside from Roe, Willie was an instinctual player whose raw talent and feel for the game would allow him to play like an all-star despite missing Cone’s scouting reports. Instead, Willie’s case hurt the team by distracting the players and coaches, whose sole concern should have been Red Bull’s zone defense and three-point marksmen. It wasn’t that they were sick with worry over their teammate’s legal woes; on the contrary, the Willie Miller robbery scandal became Alaska’s joke of the week, inspiring constant tomfoolery and howling laughter.

  The first day of Red Bull video was also the day after Willie’s first court appearance. He burst into the team lounge a few minutes late, arriving straight from Olongapo and waving a newspaper with the blaring headline EX-MVP IN ROB CASE alongside a grainy image of the normally jovial Willie with a scowl on his face. His willingness to laugh about the case set the tone for a scouting session that sounded more like a Saturday Night Live writers meeting than a team strategy summit. One player pointed out the resemblance between Willie and the character Fernando Sucre from the TV show Prison Break, thereby sparking a small riot of athletes hooting and rolling on the floor. Even assistant coach Joel Banal, known for his serene locker room presence, couldn’t resist jumping into the fray. He asked Willie to bequeath him a few pairs of sneakers, since Willie wouldn’t need them in prison. Finally, Cone shushed the team, dimmed the lights, and flipped on the Ginebra DVD to review Alaska’s gaffes and successes. Willie, who had scored 26 points, was involved in many of the highlights, and before long his teammates were chanting “Prison Break” or “the robber” every time the video showed him driving to the basket. “You’re so good, Willie,” teased assistant coach Bong Hawkins. “It will really be a waste when you’re behind bars.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of the team’s antics. Were they in denial? I didn’t believe the allegations against Willie, but the fact that they were being heard in court made the situation seem grave. The Aces were not an insensitive bunch, and they adored Willie. Initially, I chalked their reaction up to the Philippine penchant for gallows humor. From natural disasters like annual typhoons, landslides, and volcanic eruptions to man-made misery in the form of bombings in southern Mindanao and attempted military coups d’état, the nation was always recovering from some tragedy. Alaska’s players had all lost property in a flood, hid from a violent storm, or lived through civil unrest. They understood that cruel fates were dealt daily in the Philippines, and that sometimes laughter was the only way to respond.

  Later on Cone offered another explanation. He told me that the players could laugh at the charges against Willie because the allegations were so specious. The evidence supporting the supposed victim’s claim consisted of his recollection of being beaten by a crowd of men that included someone who looked like Willie and not much else. The case was receiving more coverage in salacious tabloids with names like Bulgar (as in “vulgar”) than in the country’s respected broadsheets. Philippine courts, especially regional ones, existed in a sort of alternate reality, where a corrupt or crackpot judge could turn rumor and innuendo into legal reality. These frivolous lawsuits, known as “nuisance cases,” were fairly common problems for wealthy public figures. Half trial and half shakedown, small-time judges would hear the cases to gain notoriety while plaintiffs would try to bluff celebrities into payoffs to drop the charges.

  It also helped that Willie, the PBA’s clown prince, never seemed to have met a situation that didn’t inspire comedy. To his coaches and teammates, the idea that happy-go-lucky Willie attacked anyone was beyond comprehension. Rare, perhaps nonexistent, were the moments when Willie was not performing to amuse himself or his teammates. In just three weeks with the team I had already seen him make the impromptu decisions to use a giant yoga ball during shooting drills and, during another practice, to tuck a basketball under his jersey and scrimmage while pretending to be pregnant. These moments unexpectedly revealed the breadth of Willie’s talent; he shot nearly as well with the yoga ball as many of his teammates did with basketballs, and even when he had a ball stuck in his shirt, no one could guard him. Before games, he liked to practice hesitation and crossover dribble moves in the mirror while winking, raising his eyebrows, sticking out his tongue, and practicing his entire catalog of facial contortions.

  Just about any professional basketball player loves the game, but that affection was particularly evident and infectious in Willie. His Alaska teammates seemed to admire this quality even more than his formidable skill. After one of the first practices I visited, power forward Nic Belasco told me that he’d never met anyone who loved basketball as much as Willie, who was known to drive up and down the national highway in Zambales to search for pickup games during the off-season. A ten-year PBA veteran, Nic normally had a gruff, seen-it-all manner, but there was a note of awe in his voice when he talked about Willie. Thanks to him, Nic and the rest of the team never lost touch with the joyous side of basketball. Willie’s game—fearless, beautiful, and carefree—was an oasis of fun in the pro ball pressure cooker.

  Yet Willie’s playful demeanor had tormented coaches throughout his career. Every coach he played for since high school had tried to make him act more serious on the court. He confounded drill-sergeant coaches whose approach to the sport was the warrior code. A point guard is supposed to be a team’s second coach, its floor general, but Willie, giggling and grinning with the
ball in his palm, set a different tone from his combative coaches. Watching him botch a careless pass and then laugh it off made it look like he didn’t take the game seriously. His flashes of brilliance—finishing blind floaters between three larger defenders; sinking bank shots at angles that Euclid would want to double-check—looked so effortless that even when Willie led teams to victory, coaches accused him of not trying. Coaches had such difficulty mastering Willie’s psychology that despite his talent, two PBA teams had already traded him. He entered the PBA playing for Yeng Guiao at Red Bull, where he won the MVP award in 2002, but he was poorly matched with the pugnacious mentor. Banal, the Alaska assistant, was head coach of Talk ‘N Text when Willie played there, and even though his coaching style was more relaxed and philosophical than Guiao’s, he too tried to coax Willie into playing with grim-faced determination. It didn’t work, and Willie was traded to Alaska. At first Cone tried to restrain his foolhardy on-court habits like pulling up for three-pointers on fast breaks and throwing ill-advised baseball passes. Eventually, however, the coach learned to give Willie space. More often than not, the team fared best when Willie was allowed to be himself. Cone tried to stay off the guard’s back, although the extra wrinkles that had formed over the coach’s brow since Willie joined Alaska attested to the psychic toll of admitting that some players shouldn’t be controlled.