February 21, 2023 • 39 mins
In 1998, while a young Cassidy Hubbarth sat next to her mother on their couch in Chicago, yelling at the TV as the Bulls went for their second three-peat, Nikko Ramos was playing at recess in Manila, eagerly waiting for updates from “recess runners” who darted between the canteen and a payphone to relay the game’s play-by-play from a cousin’s bootleg satellite. A 13-hour time difference, a hazy satellite feed, and questionably-accurate third party updates wouldn’t keep Filipino fans from the NBA finals. Today, according to the NBA’s yearly surveys, 62% of the general population in the Philippines consider themselves NBA fans. 34% consider themselves avid NBA fans. That’s the largest percentage of all countries. Coming from the Philippines, where the average height of men is 5’4”, one might wonder how Filipinos came to be obsessed with a sport usually played by the tallest people on the planet. Cassidy and Nikko explore the deep, colonial roots of basketball in the Philippines, the development of the second oldest professional basketball league in the world, and the creativity of Pinoy basketball fans both while playing and watching the game.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I used to always come early for the games, and
there's ten thousand people there for our warm up. It's
a love affair. It's a love affair with the NBA.
It's ingrained. I think from the cradle. You know, there's religion,
there's politics, and there's basketball. It got to the point
where Fizz and my other assistant, Chad Camra, were signing
(00:26):
kids foreheads. My legacy was forty two years ago, but
these people act like it was yesterday. You had lunch
with him, yeah, but I wasn't able to eat. I
was like, just like I had lunch, cat sat next
to him. Hey, if we could be partial contributors to
(00:48):
being dreammakers, I'm all four. Picture a place where basketball
is everywhere, from the air you breathe, to soil beneath
your feet, where people hoop anywhere and everywhere, from MBA
ready arenas to the middle of streets to the slopes
of active volcanoes, where the most common item in people's
(01:10):
wardrobes is a jersey, and the soundtrack to everyday life
is a bouncing ball. This place, this hoops heaven, is
the Philippines. Basketball where we're standing tallis when you travel
through the country You're guaranteed to see people outside shooting,
(01:34):
driving and defending on dirt and concrete courts, and they're
playing either in bare feet or were just flip flops
or channellas on their feet. But for real, the Philippines
passion for basketball is off the charts. Don't take my
word for it, though. We asked Donna Reus, director of
Content and Media Distribution at MBA Asia, to bring us
(01:54):
the numbers. We'll hear from Donna later in the episode
of the population in the Philippines consider themselves NBA fans.
That's the largest person to JAMO in all countries, and
two thirds of households in the Philippines watched MBA coverage
last season. It's no surprise that basketball caught on in
the Philippines. Basketball is caught on almost everywhere but no
(02:18):
other country, and people have embraced the game the way
Filipinos have, where it's almost a national religion. Welcome to
hoops Paradise, the Philippines Love of the game. Brought to
you by iHeartRadio and the MBA pastable. What's up, everyone,
I'm Cassidy Hubber. If you're a basketball fan, you may
(02:41):
know me from the NBA sidelines, where I'm a reporter
for ESPN and the host of the show Hoop Streams.
But what you might not know unless you're Filipino, in
which case you almost definitely know, is that I'm Filipino
American and that basketball is in my blood, not just
because it's a national obsession in the country where my
(03:01):
mother was born, but because I grew up playing around
the world with my dad in the driveway of our
home right outside of Chicago. My father's roots are Irish
and German, but his love for the game would be
right at home in the Philippines. Even now, he just
turns seventy, and he still has a regular pickup run.
He spent a lifetime around American basketball, and so have I.
(03:25):
I've only gotten the chance to go back to the
Philippines with my mom twice. I've seen enough to know
that basketball is a huge deal in the Philippines, but
I don't know the country well enough to explain every
aspect of its roundball infatuation, at least not like someone
who grew up there could. Luckily, though, I'm taking this
journey with someone who did grow up in the Philippines,
(03:45):
and he understands the country's basketball jones about as well
as anyone on the planet. Nico, what a thanks, Cassidy.
I'm Nico Ramos, a sports broadcaster here in Manila, where
I used to have a job almost exactly like yours
during NBA games, only I was a reporter and then
the commentator for a professional league which is called, in
(04:07):
a very intentional nods for our American counterparts, the PBA
or Philippine Basketball Association. I played for a very small,
very bad college team, but I used to tell everybody
I was the only one who was going to make
it to the PBA. I was right, kind of Nico,
inside the lines or outside the lines, you made it.
(04:30):
And in this podcast, we want to explore the Philippines
passion for the sport. How did a nation on the
other side of the world, from the YMCA Gymnasium in Springfield, Massachusetts,
where doctor James Naismith first hung a pair of peach
baskets and instructed his students to toss a leather ball
into the hoops, come to a door basketball Like almost
(04:52):
no other country on the planet. It's not like the
Philippines is an international powerhouse unless you're at least fifty
years old. The country has sent a team to the
Olympic Basketball Tournament in your lifetime. It also hasn't produced
a single homegrown NBA player ever yet, And well, we
(05:12):
might as well address the undersized elephant in the room.
Filipinos usually aren't very tall. In fact, statistically speaking, we're
among the shortest people in the world. National surveys have
repeatedly measured the average height of Filipino men at about
five foot four. You know, we're still on average not
(05:32):
at tall people. So we have to be kind of
creative to be successful on the court. That's Donna as
director of Content and Needia Distribution at NBA Asia. So
I think that's kind of the hallmark of Filipino basketball
is that we're pretty good at, like being creative. I
like this word a couple of words, I guess. Like
there's gulang, which literally means age in the basketball sense.
(05:56):
It sometimes can take on a negative connotation, but I
think for me means using your smarts to make up
for lack of like height or hef. But maybe a
better word is discarte, which I think kind of translates
to being strategic, but I guess it's the same thing
right to use. You're smart, to outsmart somebody and just
kind of working around your physical disadvantages. Now, Cassidy, let
me translate that for you, because Donna is though much
(06:19):
more polite Filipino out of the three of us, All
of that really adds up to a grabbing of the risks. Yeah,
pulling on the jersey's, hugging on the opponent's shorts without
the referee seeing scrap. All of that adds up to
gulang And you know, it's it's kind of it's kind
of this badge of honor that you kind of earn
(06:40):
when you're a young player. We all actually have these
moments when we remember someone older telling us I'm a
gulan ka, which means, oh, now you know how to play.
Now you know how to play. I feel like I
need to start using that a little bit more here
in the States. And just like surprise people, I'm paper.
(07:01):
None of this adds up to the profile of a
country made up of one hundred million basketball junkies and
NBA addicts. Yet the two times I visited family in
the Philippines with my mom, I've seen this sport everywhere
around me, pickup games on every street corner, NBA stars
passed in present, smiling down at me from a twelve
story billboard, and live game broadcasts on TV from SunUp
(07:25):
to sundown. When it comes to Filipino fans interest in
NBA basketball, the numbers are mind blowing. On social media,
the league's Facebook page has more than eight million followers
from the Philippines that ranks number two in the world,
above every country but the States. Last season, viewers from
(07:45):
the Philippines accounted for one third of the total hours
watched on the NBA's YouTube channel. And for all those
critics who say the Dunk contest has lost its charm,
don't bring that mess to Manila. Because Filipinos watched almost
ten and a half million hours of MBA content last
All Star weekend, about twenty percent of all worldwide consumption. Well,
(08:07):
there's no stopping Filipinos from watching basketball, and watching a
lot of it. As they say. If you know, you know.
When I worked as editor in chief of Slam Philippines
and even now in my position as Senior brand director
for Titan, I spend a lot of time in meetings
with basketball and sneaker executives from other countries and Whenever
(08:27):
I start sharing stats about Filipino basketball obsession, or when
I tell them stories about teenagers practicing step back threes
and their flip flops, they can hardly believe what they're hearing. Basically,
a big part of my job is to translate the
country's national obsession to the international brands we work with,
and to always be looking for ways to connect people
(08:48):
through the sport. So does that mean you could tell
me what's going on with the Senator who has his
own signature shoe? I thought you'd never ask. But for
the record, that wasn't us. Don't pin that on us.
Titan was not the mastermind behind Senator Bong Goes twenty
eighteen three point King sneaker drop. That was a local
(09:10):
apparel company called World Balance and the shoe a white
and lime green low top with a mesh body. Yeah,
it was a real thing. And yes, before you ask,
the Senator Ken stroke it from way downtown. The sneaker
was a limited release of only five hundred pairs and
they were mostly you know, created to drum a publicity
(09:33):
for Goes. Can I say it? But successful Senate campaign
that year? All in all, yes, there's no denying they
were real. Local influencers even did unboxing videos on YouTube
comparing the three point Kings quote unquote, vibe and fit
to the Nike KD Elevins. You gotta be the shoes.
And here I am still waiting for new balance to
(09:55):
come out with the Obama. Yes, we can mids the
intersection between basketball and politics in the Philippines. It's an amazing,
an often ridiculous way to illustrate how deeply the sport
is ingrained in Filipinos lives. All right, Cassidy, Now it's
my turn to ask the question. The times you did
(10:17):
visit family here in the Philippines, what do you notice
about basketball in the country. Well, regretfully, I've only been
back twice. First time I was so little i can
barely remember it. The second time I was in college.
And Filipino Americans know how it goes when we come
home for a visit. Our families basically kidnap us from
(10:37):
the moment we land in Manila till they return us
to the airport a few hours before the return flight.
So the entire trip we've been shuttle door to door
from the family home to the mall, to the restaurant
to the beach and then back. But I did spend
a lot of time in traffic gazing at my surroundings
(10:57):
from the backseat of my family car. And during those hours,
even when I wasn't looking for it, I saw basketball everywhere.
There were vendors walking through the gridlock selling things you'd expect,
like water bottles and air fresheners, but also items that
seem completely useless in a traffic jam, like feather dusters,
(11:17):
toilet plungers, and yes, fully inflated, bright orange rubber basketballs.
Are people really working on their handles while waiting at
red lights? I mean smart, like get that handlework in
when you can. But other times I'd look out the
window and see Magic Johnson's painted portrait staring right back
(11:37):
at me, along with Byron Scott, James Worthy, and the
rest of the Showtime Lakers starting five from the side
of one of those public transport cheapneys. But what really
struck me were the basketball courts. Every corner had its
own makeshift half court, and every town plaza had a
full court, complete with concrete bleachers, an aluminum roof, and
(11:58):
an electronic scoreboard. A lot of them look like they
had fiberglass backboards and breakaway rims. You know how jealous
I would have been of public courts like these during
the middle school heyday of my playing career. Yeah, that's
what makes the Philippines basketball heaven in a lot of ways.
No matter how you connect with a sport, you're going
to find a court and more importantly, a level to
(12:20):
play at. If you're elite, you're gonna gravitate towards the
elite guys. Now, if you're like me and you just
want to sweat once or twice a week, there's that
group for you too. If you're just hanging out or
around your street and your flip flops, there's a half
court there that you guys built on an electricity pole,
and playing there means something to whether you live in
(12:40):
a city or in the province, those courts are centers
of community life. Sometimes it feels even stronger in the
most rural areas, where the basketball court serves so many functions.
It's the open space where farmers lay down their rice
crops out to dry. It's the banquet hall where the
town holds beauty pageants and talent shows and six am
(13:02):
zoomba classes. It's the evacuation center when it's hyphoon threatens
people's homes, and it's the spot where local governments administer
public health programs like vaccination campaigns, and yes, even summertime
community circumctition events. Don't ask. It's all in the basketball court.
And I haven't even mentioned the basketball that's played there yet.
(13:24):
Like I've been lucky enough to play basketball all around
the world, I played terrible Division three college basketball here
in the Philippines, and to this day, the best feeling
I've ever had while playing the game wasn't when I
shared the court with Kevin Durant or Blake Griffin or
sneaker launch runs. He drops something, Oh yeah, no, yeah,
(13:47):
just should I double click on some details because that
time I played with KD he was just talking trash
at me because I airballed the jumper. He remembers me
to this day as Manila No jumper. Yes, he still
calls me that I'm bringing that up next time I
see him at shoot around. And Blake Griffin once passed
the ball to me and I shot at three and
(14:09):
it went in and I told him to please tell
KDE and he said, that's really weird. So while I
name drop the details, though, aren't something I'm really eager
to share. As I was saying, it's not when playing
with those guys that I felt the best. It was
on the court. Right down the street from my house
in Marquina City, there was this one special summer where
(14:32):
our neighborhood, which consists of three streets, was split into
four teams, and the only rule was brothers and dads
can't play on the same team. We have to split
it off so that everyone makes friends with everybody. So
in the finals, my dad was coaching his team and
I was playing for mine. He was heckling me the
(14:52):
entire game. So when I hit a big three pointer
in the fourth quarter, that really pissed him off. To
this day, that's my favorite basketball memory because seeing my
dad not knowing if he was supposed to be proud
of me or if he was supposed to be mad
because he was losing. It's priceless. Favorite basketball memory. Yeah,
(15:12):
because me and my two brothers were talking smack to
my dad everyone like, that's what you get for not
betting on one of us. It's true, talk about tough love.
My mom was there upset because everybody was late for
dinner and that double that she had made was getting cold,
and she didn't go there to watch. She just went
there and crossed the street to tell the four of
us to go home. Incredible. To this day, and this
(15:36):
is no exaggeration, I still have people from that neighborhood
come up to me and say, I was there when
you hit that shot and your dad got pissed off.
Everybody in the country has a story like that. The
game is tied to our most cherished memories, the unforgettable
moments shared with our whole communities. And even if those
moments didn't come in a basketball game, they for sure
(15:58):
happened on a basketball court. Yeah, in Tenement, the one
important place. He's the basketball court. You know why. The
camaraderie there, the family itself, it's built there. That was
coach Eddie Barboena describing the similar connection his community has
with their central basketball court. Only their court and their
(16:20):
community is unlike any other in the Philippines. It's the
only street court in the nation that Jordan Clarkson, Paul George,
and Lebron James have made round ball pilgrimages too, a
place so special that Lebron left a cement imprint of
his hand behind to mark his visit. That place is
(16:40):
located into gig one of these seventeen cities that make
up Metro Manila, and that famous blacktop court is named Tenement,
after the housing structure that surrounds it. So I'm a
trainer coach here they just may see how to help people.
The Tenement was built on nineteen sixty two President just Oo.
(17:03):
This building was condemned, but the japan Engineering c and
test our building here. It lasts more than fifteen years.
They said that this place is not safe, but they're wrong.
This place is so much love. Where we come back,
(17:24):
it's time for a quick ta gala Clesson Cassidy. I
don't mean to put you on the spot, but how's
your tag? Um? Look, this is not like I still
(17:45):
hold this against my mom or my Lola, who you
know both were in the household. I was my whole
entire life raising me um. But they didn't teach me
to galog. That's okay. I know a few words, and
you I know a few phrases like I'm not cool
or you know massa rop and uh yepital and you
(18:07):
know I can. I can say a few things, but
not as much as I want to and I still
need to. You know, I still hold that against my mom.
It's their fault. It's completely on that. But look, it's
not a problem that the gout a lesson have got
here for you. Isn't something you would have learned in
college courses or Rosetta Stone. We're pretty much anywhere outside
(18:27):
of the Philippines among nineties era NBA fans. And I
can't even blame this on your mom or your lola,
because you had to be a basketball fan to really
know this. Now, when I bring up the greatest pick
and roll duos of the nineties era, who are the
first two players who come to mind? Quick? Can't you
(18:49):
watched your hometown Chicago Bulls beat them in the finals twice? Oh,
easy work? John Stockton and Karl Malone? Right? Perfect? And
do you remember how the great and be on NBC
announcer Marv Albert would call their plays together back then?
Stockton to Malone Bengo. Well, in Filipino, the version of
(19:11):
expanded Tagalog that serves as the Philippines national language, the
same exact sounds, that combination of phonetics they happen to
form the sentence Stockton to Malone, which means Stockton jump
and every time the mailman delivered on a Stockton assist
in those years, it was like Marv and millions of
(19:33):
Filipino NBA fans we're sharing an inside joke only we
could understand. Oh wow, I feel the same kind of
if you know, you know, connection with Filipino fans. I mean,
you know, while covering the NBA most of the time,
will be at the big events that draw spectators from
all over the world, like All Star Weekend, Summer League,
or the NBA Finals, and I'll be walking down like
(19:56):
an arena hallway or spot a few fans sitting together
in this hands and we'll just make eye contact. And
this is something you know that like I do just
on a daily basis, I will make sure if I
think you're a Filipino, I will say something Filipino. Often
I'm right, I'm like nine right, But specifically with NBA
(20:16):
fans who come up to me during games or you know,
at NBA events, I will absolutely say Filipino and then
we would embrace and I would say Filipino, Filipino, Filipedo.
And by the way, they don't point at you then
giveaways that it's not a head nod. No, it's it's
not a point. They kind of gesture their lips. Yes,
(20:41):
because Filipino's talk with their face. Yeah, exactly over there,
well there. So when you see them talking to someone
whoever is next to them and then making that like
kissing mark gesture at you, it's only to say you
see her, Cassidy. Yes, it's not creepy. Yeah, okay, creeped out.
And a lot of the time they'll stop me and
share a quick version of their own basketball love story
(21:03):
and then tell me how much it means to see
a fellow Filipino on screen during NBA games. I know
you hate it every time. I tell you how important
that is to so many people here to see you
represent us so well. I mean a lot of the time,
the country's basketball passion shines brightest when our love for
the game comes into contact with the oldest and best
(21:24):
pro league in the world. So to have you there,
it's incredibly, incredibly a proud moment, NonStop for all Filipinos everywhere.
We've also seen it up close when great players like
Lebron or Kde come through Manila during their offseason sneaker tours.
When Kevin Durant visited Manila, he was greeted by chanting
fans everywhere he went. It's a dream to look at
(21:49):
man in the sea and didn't have Enos players here
with them. Man can't beat there. So you know, I'm
sure you'll see a future NBA player walking around here
at some point. I mean, a chance to see a
Finals MVP in the flesh, maybe even get close enough
to ask for an autograph, for a selfie. It becomes
almost like a religious experience, and the players feel it too.
(22:11):
I mean, I remember any time Kobe Bryant would come
to the Philippines on a sneaker tour, the country would stop,
like everybody you knew would be at wherever it was.
It was rumored that Kolby would be. It was raining,
didn't matter, it was sun ten feet right over your head,
(22:33):
did it matter. You were only going to see a
glimpse of Kobe through the glass, didn't matter. There were
thousands of people there just waiting to see him. The
love definitely goes both ways, Nico. I remember back in
two thousand and eight, after the Boston Celtics be Kobe
and won their first championship since the Larry bird days,
(22:54):
the team celebrated by going to a Manny Pacil fight
in Las Vegas, and then all of a sudden, after
Manny knocked out some poor guy named David Diaz, there
was Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Rajon Rondo, Sam Cassell,
and Tony Allen partying in Manny's locker room, and you
couldn't tell who was more starstruck to meet the other.
(23:15):
I'm not sure Cage even knew, but before they went
in there, Manny had been calling him his favorite player
for years. Huge Man, huge Man. Just just what it is, Man,
I'm a huge pac Man fans. While we're here, you
know that this guy has never asked for the picture
for anyone except you. He is your number one, the
(23:37):
Philippines greatest living champion at the time when he could
almost literally do no wrong in the eyes of fellopen noise,
engaging in some adorable cross cultural bromance with future NBA
Hall of famers, with some of the best basketball players
on the planet looking up to our national sporting hero.
For Filipinos watching the scene unfold, it was like Manny
(24:00):
said a dream come true. Later on Manny's love for
KG and the Celtics wound up playing a factor in
one of the most controversial fights they June twenty twelve,
lost to Timothy Bradley Junior that nobody watching the fight
seemed to see Manny losing. Rumors swirled after the bout
that Manny had angered the ringside judges by postponing his
(24:23):
ring walk while he watched the Celtics play the Miami
Heat in an Eastern Conference Finals game. I'm still I'm
still sour about that loss. By the way, I still
demand a recount same. I remember being so mad. I
think I was at a party that night watching on
my phone and everyone was like, what is wrong with you?
Like this is just an atrocity. But I digress. Overall,
(24:47):
the way that Manny always wore his love for basketball
and the NBA on his sleeve, launching his two handed
catapult of a jump shot in pickup games, his brief
and confusing foray into owning Code Chain and playing for
his own PBA team, starting his own regional pro league
to provide opportunities for the surplus of Filipino basketball players
(25:09):
who aren't quite PBA caliber. It seems like another perfect
example of how basketball touches just every Filipino in the world.
In some way you see basketball in the NBA's influence
on Manny's life. But really you see it wherever you
look in the Philippines, and the closer you look, the
more you see the sports imprint all around you. They're
(25:31):
the painted portraits of NBA legends on the sides of
jeepneys that you mentioned earlier, often with images of the
driver's wife and children. On the hood. There are the
court size murals of Lebron and Kobe that the artists
and activists of the Tenement community hand painted onto their
home court. Coach Eddie Barbuena told us about the creation
(25:52):
of the famous Kobe mural on the Tenement court, the
mural of Kobe, Bryant and gig it's very tachi. When
that time happens, all the people gather all around the world. Actually,
the idea of putting the mural here in the famous
(26:12):
basketball for Tenement is the idea came from the Tenement
Virtual Artists. We have our Tenement Virtual artist here and
with cooperation and coordination with the Tahan and Association lead
by our president Jennifer karpen So, the plan was so
fast they do the mural for respect and love to
(26:38):
the father and daughter Kobe and Gigi for three days.
They do it that for three days continuously, without a sleep.
There are the times you'll catch a glimpse of a
tanker truck passing by and realize as its speeds out
of sight that it had a gigantic Michael Jordan Jumpman
logo painted on the back. One of the most intimate
(27:01):
examples of how deep the nation's love the NBA runs
comes from the number of Filipino parents who choose to
give their children NBA inspired names. There's no way to
tell exactly how many of the countries Kevin's or Allan's
were named after Garnette or Durant or Iverson, but I
(27:23):
promise you if we could interview each and every one
of them, you wouldn't believe how many of them would
say they're named after an NBA Grede. Basically, if a
newborn boy in the Philippines isn't named after a saint,
there's a good chance he'll be named after the next
holiest figure. An NBA legend. The sidestep moved by Scottie Thompson,
(27:47):
Steve Nash Enriquez gets it to go because he did
have a depressive rookie year. He has a right spots
and now he's just looking to build on him. In
case you can't quite believe your ears, I'll slow it
down for you. That was Scotty Thompson, reigning MVP of
the PB eight, whose dad named him Scottie after Scottie Pippin.
Then a couple of college players whose namesakes could not
(28:10):
be any clearer, National University point guard Steve Nash Enriquez.
By the way, Steve Nash and Riquez also have a
massive ponytail, and he's like five foot eight on his
best day, which makes him the best player to cover.
I love him, man. I will say this. Though Irvin
(28:32):
Magic Ramos was my leading candidates to name my son,
my wife would have none of it. We eventually named
him Tyler and depending on how Tyler Hero's career goes.
Oh is where al stand with the story Tyler Hero
becomes an MVP one day, I'll say my son was
named after him, and then you just got it. But
(28:52):
you have to add Hero with the double R as
the middle name. You know that, right, I don't mind it.
Tyler Hero Ramos. I don't mind it into it. Actually,
it's amazing. All right. I think that's our cue to
take a quick break. But when we come back, we're
traveling back to nineteen ninety eight. Jaw alone is coupled.
(29:17):
They shot out of it and stealing up Chicago seventeen seconds,
seventeen seconds from Game seven Orcal Championship number six. Jordan
open Chicago with the lane. Cassidy, you're from Chicago. I'm
guessing you recognize that sound. Recognize nineteen ninety eight, Salt
(29:43):
Lake City. You talk, Michael Jordan, the shot, get off me, Brian,
even though people called you Byron, your name is Brian
Russell Stockton. Why don't you tom alone yourself off this court?
MJ and the poll second three p. Twenty thousand, cry
jazz fans. I don't just recognize that sound. I don't
(30:04):
just appreciate that sound. I am that sound. I cherish
that sound. All right, Okay, Chicna go easy easy. We
all saw the push off, Yes, we all watched it.
Do you remember where you watched MJ? Push off? Brian Russell,
I didn't see any push off. I don't know what
you're talking about, but I was in eighth grade around
(30:24):
then the time of the shot and only the shot.
I was home in my living room watching from the couch,
like we did every single Bowls playoff game back then,
and my mom was screaming her absolute head off, like
shrieking every time every time a shot went up, and
(30:44):
I could hear her sometimes when I'd be taking the
dog out a walk two blocks down, just screaming Scotty.
She didn't even scream for Luke Longley, what are you doing,
b J? I had Mom calmed down, You're gonna blood pressure, Mom,
(31:05):
blood pressure. But that was that was our household. I mean,
to grow up in the nineties during that era of
the NBA, I mean exactly why I am who I
am and how I ended up where I ended up.
I feel like you're describing my mother with that exact
(31:25):
same tone and volume. Because the Philippines was thirteen hours
ahead of Eastern Standard time during that part of the year,
so for me, it was Monday morning and it would
have been about maybe nine, almost ten years old. In
elementary school. I was at the sweet spot of just
(31:46):
really beginning to understand basketball and blossoming as a fan.
Because of Jordan and the Three Peats, everybody I knew
had Bulls Merch and only Bulls Merch for some reason,
like everyone had relatives in Chicago. Back then, it wasn't
so easy to watch NBA games on TV. There weren't
that many options for cable, and most of the games
(32:07):
that we did see were incredibly delayed. The stories folks
tell about the NBA's dark ages in the seventies when
finals games weren't aired on live TV and came on
sometime in the middle of the night, after the news
or after the late night talk shows. We were still
living in that world at some point in the nineties.
(32:27):
But those limitations forces to get creative, and I remember
trying to follow note I say followed not watch that
game six between Chicago and Utah, and it became one
of the great basketball experiences of my life. So at school,
much like many many other schools in the Philippines, we
had what were called recess runners. So during the school day,
(32:49):
we had a recess period and one of the kids,
the runner, he'd sprint up to the pay phone to
call his cousin, his friend, or whoever it was they
knew that was wealthy enough or lived far away from
Manila enough sneak enough to have one of those bootlegs
satellites that provided a hazy feed of NBA games. The
runner would call his guy, ask for the score, what
(33:12):
was happening in the game, how many technicals did Dennis
Rodman have? What color his hair is? All that stuff?
And he'd come running one hundred meters back into the
canteen and yell into the entire student lounge where everybody
would be their waiting. That morning of game six, the
runner came back. He kind of messed up the story
(33:34):
of that last play. It's like a classic literal game
of telephone because he came back sweat all over him, right,
he's gasping for breath, and he said Jordan pushed off.
He hit the game winner. Jordan pushed Russell the bulls win.
That may have been the last shot Michael Jordan will
ever take in the NBA. What's Joan's left hand here
(33:58):
as he gives Russell the push. Referee can't see that.
That's the image we had in our minds, in our
minds as ten year olds. Michael Jordan assaulted Bryan Russell,
just physically hurt him. Because the guy on the phone
told a recess runner that Jordan pushed Russell, and it
(34:20):
was our only way of knowing what happened in the moment.
And it stayed like that in my mind for about
a month and a half before someone finally lent a
VHS recording of the game from the States. It was
a copy of a copy of a copy. And then
I saw that, yes, MJ initiated some contact on that
(34:41):
famous play, but it was more like a love tap
than the crazy shove that we had imagined in our mind.
It was physical assault. You're telling me this all started.
All this talk about a push off started from a
bad game of telephone at your school. That's how this
push off on sense got started. Jay, I'm sorry, City
(35:03):
of Chicago. I'm sorry it was all because of one guy.
Have won their sixth NBA championship and it's their second
three people. Looking back on it, though, I'm happy I
lived through those days before streaming and cable made it
so easy to follow the NBA games. I'm proud that
(35:26):
I came of age during a time when we would
do literally anything to get a scrap of information about
our favorite teams and players, cook up wild schemes just
to hear game updates. Where there's a will, there's a way,
And when it comes to the Filipinos craving for NBA basketball,
there's an entire world's worth of willpower coming out of
this small island nation. We asked Donna as if there
(35:50):
were any misconceptions about Pinoy basketball culture that she'd like
to clear up. Maybe people just aren't aware. Maybe they've
seen photos or videos of these like makeshift courts. You know,
you know, all of that is absolutely true. You can
literally find like a makeshift in every neighborhood. But it's
just that it's not a passing hobby for a lot
of Filipino fans. It's actually what we're discovering and constantly
(36:14):
astounded by this is that Filipino fans are actually quite
sophisticated and knowledgeable about NBA basketball. So if you go
up to somebody who's like playing barefoot or in flip blop,
they actually know the nuances of the game, they know
the players, they know the history quite well. So that
might be a little bit surprising to people just how
again sophisticated and knowledgeable Filipino fans are. So much has
(36:35):
changed over the last ten twenty years. I'm gonna kind
of date myself here by talking about a little bit
about this, but that's really kind of dictated by the
growing demand for for NBA content. So I guess if
you go back, like maybe the eighties or nineties, you
really only watch games on a laid basis, you know,
trying to find ways to watch a game. There used
(36:56):
to be these two American military basis just north of Manila,
and they had access to the Far East Network, which
is guests the Armed Forces Network in the US, So
if you live close enough, you could pick up the
signal and be able to watch like American television, including
NBA games. And now, of course NBA fans in the
Philippines can file the league and watch basketball with every
(37:19):
waking hour of their days thanks to International League Pass,
domestic and international media coverage of the league, and cable
channels that run live NBA games in the morning and
replays at night. But they don't take that access for granted, Nope.
Filipinos are now among the most engaged NBA fans in
the world, and the league has taken notice. But I
(37:42):
think for the first real change really came about with
you know, obviously the advent of satellite technology and cable TV.
You know, it's more people you know, got PTV subscriptions.
We went from getting just a few delayed games per
week and now you have you know, live games daily.
So twenty ten we even launched a twenty four to
seven NBA channel, which we still have today and we
(38:05):
air now about roughly eighteen games on TV per week.
The game is definitely evolved. A lot of it, I
think is it just exposure, not just the NBA basketball,
but like you know, international basketball, there's FIBA, you know,
other professional leagues like the Year League that your Panby
League on Australian NBA. So if you watch like a
PBA or a UAP game now you'll see that influence
(38:27):
in their self play, you know. I think again the
game has changed a little bit and we're now playing
a little bit more above the rim, but like there's
still a lot of play below the rim, so you
can see a lot of that creativity and just trying
to get to the basket and trying to make those shots.
You should see the Donner s Ai cross. Nobody has
seen it at this point. I think we've done about
(38:51):
all we can to illustrate just how widespread the Philippines
basketball obsession is, and how the country's love of the
game runs as deep as it can get. I imagine
that fifty four thousand people watching a basketball game, I
mean the regular US NBA arena. It's like, you know,
twenty twenty five, twenty three, You know, this is fifty
(39:12):
three thousand people. It's a love affair. It's a love
affair with the NBA. One part still feels like it's missing.
Note we adore basketball, sure, but why what part of
our history turned the Philippines into a nation of hoop
heads rather than a country full of soccer or cricket
or baseball fans. Listen to episode two of Hoops Paradise,
(39:35):
The Philippines Love of the Game to find out. Available
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
I used to always come early for the games, and
there's ten thousand people there for our warm up. It's
a love affair. It's a love affair with the NBA.
It's ingrained. I think from the cradle. You know, there's religion,
there's politics, and there's basketball. It got to the point
where Fizz and my other assistant, Chad Camra, were signing
(00:26):
kids foreheads. My legacy was forty two years ago, but
these people act like it was yesterday. You had lunch
with him, yeah, but I wasn't able to eat. I
was like, just like I had lunch, cat sat next
to him. Hey, if we could be partial contributors to
(00:48):
being dreammakers, I'm all four. Picture a place where basketball
is everywhere, from the air you breathe, to soil beneath
your feet, where people hoop anywhere and everywhere, from MBA
ready arenas to the middle of streets to the slopes
of active volcanoes, where the most common item in people's
(01:10):
wardrobes is a jersey, and the soundtrack to everyday life
is a bouncing ball. This place, this hoops heaven, is
the Philippines. Basketball where we're standing tallis when you travel
through the country You're guaranteed to see people outside shooting,
(01:34):
driving and defending on dirt and concrete courts, and they're
playing either in bare feet or were just flip flops
or channellas on their feet. But for real, the Philippines
passion for basketball is off the charts. Don't take my
word for it, though. We asked Donna Reus, director of
Content and Media Distribution at MBA Asia, to bring us
(01:54):
the numbers. We'll hear from Donna later in the episode
of the population in the Philippines consider themselves NBA fans.
That's the largest person to JAMO in all countries, and
two thirds of households in the Philippines watched MBA coverage
last season. It's no surprise that basketball caught on in
the Philippines. Basketball is caught on almost everywhere but no
(02:18):
other country, and people have embraced the game the way
Filipinos have, where it's almost a national religion. Welcome to
hoops Paradise, the Philippines Love of the game. Brought to
you by iHeartRadio and the MBA pastable. What's up, everyone,
I'm Cassidy Hubber. If you're a basketball fan, you may
(02:41):
know me from the NBA sidelines, where I'm a reporter
for ESPN and the host of the show Hoop Streams.
But what you might not know unless you're Filipino, in
which case you almost definitely know, is that I'm Filipino
American and that basketball is in my blood, not just
because it's a national obsession in the country where my
(03:01):
mother was born, but because I grew up playing around
the world with my dad in the driveway of our
home right outside of Chicago. My father's roots are Irish
and German, but his love for the game would be
right at home in the Philippines. Even now, he just
turns seventy, and he still has a regular pickup run.
He spent a lifetime around American basketball, and so have I.
(03:25):
I've only gotten the chance to go back to the
Philippines with my mom twice. I've seen enough to know
that basketball is a huge deal in the Philippines, but
I don't know the country well enough to explain every
aspect of its roundball infatuation, at least not like someone
who grew up there could. Luckily, though, I'm taking this
journey with someone who did grow up in the Philippines,
(03:45):
and he understands the country's basketball jones about as well
as anyone on the planet. Nico, what a thanks, Cassidy.
I'm Nico Ramos, a sports broadcaster here in Manila, where
I used to have a job almost exactly like yours
during NBA games, only I was a reporter and then
the commentator for a professional league which is called, in
(04:07):
a very intentional nods for our American counterparts, the PBA
or Philippine Basketball Association. I played for a very small,
very bad college team, but I used to tell everybody
I was the only one who was going to make
it to the PBA. I was right, kind of Nico,
inside the lines or outside the lines, you made it.
(04:30):
And in this podcast, we want to explore the Philippines
passion for the sport. How did a nation on the
other side of the world, from the YMCA Gymnasium in Springfield, Massachusetts,
where doctor James Naismith first hung a pair of peach
baskets and instructed his students to toss a leather ball
into the hoops, come to a door basketball Like almost
(04:52):
no other country on the planet. It's not like the
Philippines is an international powerhouse unless you're at least fifty
years old. The country has sent a team to the
Olympic Basketball Tournament in your lifetime. It also hasn't produced
a single homegrown NBA player ever yet, And well, we
(05:12):
might as well address the undersized elephant in the room.
Filipinos usually aren't very tall. In fact, statistically speaking, we're
among the shortest people in the world. National surveys have
repeatedly measured the average height of Filipino men at about
five foot four. You know, we're still on average not
(05:32):
at tall people. So we have to be kind of
creative to be successful on the court. That's Donna as
director of Content and Needia Distribution at NBA Asia. So
I think that's kind of the hallmark of Filipino basketball
is that we're pretty good at, like being creative. I
like this word a couple of words, I guess. Like
there's gulang, which literally means age in the basketball sense.
(05:56):
It sometimes can take on a negative connotation, but I
think for me means using your smarts to make up
for lack of like height or hef. But maybe a
better word is discarte, which I think kind of translates
to being strategic, but I guess it's the same thing
right to use. You're smart, to outsmart somebody and just
kind of working around your physical disadvantages. Now, Cassidy, let
me translate that for you, because Donna is though much
(06:19):
more polite Filipino out of the three of us, All
of that really adds up to a grabbing of the risks. Yeah,
pulling on the jersey's, hugging on the opponent's shorts without
the referee seeing scrap. All of that adds up to
gulang And you know, it's it's kind of it's kind
of this badge of honor that you kind of earn
(06:40):
when you're a young player. We all actually have these
moments when we remember someone older telling us I'm a
gulan ka, which means, oh, now you know how to play.
Now you know how to play. I feel like I
need to start using that a little bit more here
in the States. And just like surprise people, I'm paper.
(07:01):
None of this adds up to the profile of a
country made up of one hundred million basketball junkies and
NBA addicts. Yet the two times I visited family in
the Philippines with my mom, I've seen this sport everywhere
around me, pickup games on every street corner, NBA stars
passed in present, smiling down at me from a twelve
story billboard, and live game broadcasts on TV from SunUp
(07:25):
to sundown. When it comes to Filipino fans interest in
NBA basketball, the numbers are mind blowing. On social media,
the league's Facebook page has more than eight million followers
from the Philippines that ranks number two in the world,
above every country but the States. Last season, viewers from
(07:45):
the Philippines accounted for one third of the total hours
watched on the NBA's YouTube channel. And for all those
critics who say the Dunk contest has lost its charm,
don't bring that mess to Manila. Because Filipinos watched almost
ten and a half million hours of MBA content last
All Star weekend, about twenty percent of all worldwide consumption. Well,
(08:07):
there's no stopping Filipinos from watching basketball, and watching a
lot of it. As they say. If you know, you know.
When I worked as editor in chief of Slam Philippines
and even now in my position as Senior brand director
for Titan, I spend a lot of time in meetings
with basketball and sneaker executives from other countries and Whenever
(08:27):
I start sharing stats about Filipino basketball obsession, or when
I tell them stories about teenagers practicing step back threes
and their flip flops, they can hardly believe what they're hearing. Basically,
a big part of my job is to translate the
country's national obsession to the international brands we work with,
and to always be looking for ways to connect people
(08:48):
through the sport. So does that mean you could tell
me what's going on with the Senator who has his
own signature shoe? I thought you'd never ask. But for
the record, that wasn't us. Don't pin that on us.
Titan was not the mastermind behind Senator Bong Goes twenty
eighteen three point King sneaker drop. That was a local
(09:10):
apparel company called World Balance and the shoe a white
and lime green low top with a mesh body. Yeah,
it was a real thing. And yes, before you ask,
the Senator Ken stroke it from way downtown. The sneaker
was a limited release of only five hundred pairs and
they were mostly you know, created to drum a publicity
(09:33):
for Goes. Can I say it? But successful Senate campaign
that year? All in all, yes, there's no denying they
were real. Local influencers even did unboxing videos on YouTube
comparing the three point Kings quote unquote, vibe and fit
to the Nike KD Elevins. You gotta be the shoes.
And here I am still waiting for new balance to
(09:55):
come out with the Obama. Yes, we can mids the
intersection between basketball and politics in the Philippines. It's an amazing,
an often ridiculous way to illustrate how deeply the sport
is ingrained in Filipinos lives. All right, Cassidy, Now it's
my turn to ask the question. The times you did
(10:17):
visit family here in the Philippines, what do you notice
about basketball in the country. Well, regretfully, I've only been
back twice. First time I was so little i can
barely remember it. The second time I was in college.
And Filipino Americans know how it goes when we come
home for a visit. Our families basically kidnap us from
(10:37):
the moment we land in Manila till they return us
to the airport a few hours before the return flight.
So the entire trip we've been shuttle door to door
from the family home to the mall, to the restaurant
to the beach and then back. But I did spend
a lot of time in traffic gazing at my surroundings
(10:57):
from the backseat of my family car. And during those hours,
even when I wasn't looking for it, I saw basketball everywhere.
There were vendors walking through the gridlock selling things you'd expect,
like water bottles and air fresheners, but also items that
seem completely useless in a traffic jam, like feather dusters,
(11:17):
toilet plungers, and yes, fully inflated, bright orange rubber basketballs.
Are people really working on their handles while waiting at
red lights? I mean smart, like get that handlework in
when you can. But other times I'd look out the
window and see Magic Johnson's painted portrait staring right back
(11:37):
at me, along with Byron Scott, James Worthy, and the
rest of the Showtime Lakers starting five from the side
of one of those public transport cheapneys. But what really
struck me were the basketball courts. Every corner had its
own makeshift half court, and every town plaza had a
full court, complete with concrete bleachers, an aluminum roof, and
(11:58):
an electronic scoreboard. A lot of them look like they
had fiberglass backboards and breakaway rims. You know how jealous
I would have been of public courts like these during
the middle school heyday of my playing career. Yeah, that's
what makes the Philippines basketball heaven in a lot of ways.
No matter how you connect with a sport, you're going
to find a court and more importantly, a level to
(12:20):
play at. If you're elite, you're gonna gravitate towards the
elite guys. Now, if you're like me and you just
want to sweat once or twice a week, there's that
group for you too. If you're just hanging out or
around your street and your flip flops, there's a half
court there that you guys built on an electricity pole,
and playing there means something to whether you live in
(12:40):
a city or in the province, those courts are centers
of community life. Sometimes it feels even stronger in the
most rural areas, where the basketball court serves so many functions.
It's the open space where farmers lay down their rice
crops out to dry. It's the banquet hall where the
town holds beauty pageants and talent shows and six am
(13:02):
zoomba classes. It's the evacuation center when it's hyphoon threatens
people's homes, and it's the spot where local governments administer
public health programs like vaccination campaigns, and yes, even summertime
community circumctition events. Don't ask. It's all in the basketball court.
And I haven't even mentioned the basketball that's played there yet.
(13:24):
Like I've been lucky enough to play basketball all around
the world, I played terrible Division three college basketball here
in the Philippines, and to this day, the best feeling
I've ever had while playing the game wasn't when I
shared the court with Kevin Durant or Blake Griffin or
sneaker launch runs. He drops something, Oh yeah, no, yeah,
(13:47):
just should I double click on some details because that
time I played with KD he was just talking trash
at me because I airballed the jumper. He remembers me
to this day as Manila No jumper. Yes, he still
calls me that I'm bringing that up next time I
see him at shoot around. And Blake Griffin once passed
the ball to me and I shot at three and
(14:09):
it went in and I told him to please tell
KDE and he said, that's really weird. So while I
name drop the details, though, aren't something I'm really eager
to share. As I was saying, it's not when playing
with those guys that I felt the best. It was
on the court. Right down the street from my house
in Marquina City, there was this one special summer where
(14:32):
our neighborhood, which consists of three streets, was split into
four teams, and the only rule was brothers and dads
can't play on the same team. We have to split
it off so that everyone makes friends with everybody. So
in the finals, my dad was coaching his team and
I was playing for mine. He was heckling me the
(14:52):
entire game. So when I hit a big three pointer
in the fourth quarter, that really pissed him off. To
this day, that's my favorite basketball memory because seeing my
dad not knowing if he was supposed to be proud
of me or if he was supposed to be mad
because he was losing. It's priceless. Favorite basketball memory. Yeah,
(15:12):
because me and my two brothers were talking smack to
my dad everyone like, that's what you get for not
betting on one of us. It's true, talk about tough love.
My mom was there upset because everybody was late for
dinner and that double that she had made was getting cold,
and she didn't go there to watch. She just went
there and crossed the street to tell the four of
us to go home. Incredible. To this day, and this
(15:36):
is no exaggeration, I still have people from that neighborhood
come up to me and say, I was there when
you hit that shot and your dad got pissed off.
Everybody in the country has a story like that. The
game is tied to our most cherished memories, the unforgettable
moments shared with our whole communities. And even if those
moments didn't come in a basketball game, they for sure
(15:58):
happened on a basketball court. Yeah, in Tenement, the one
important place. He's the basketball court. You know why. The
camaraderie there, the family itself, it's built there. That was
coach Eddie Barboena describing the similar connection his community has
with their central basketball court. Only their court and their
(16:20):
community is unlike any other in the Philippines. It's the
only street court in the nation that Jordan Clarkson, Paul George,
and Lebron James have made round ball pilgrimages too, a
place so special that Lebron left a cement imprint of
his hand behind to mark his visit. That place is
(16:40):
located into gig one of these seventeen cities that make
up Metro Manila, and that famous blacktop court is named Tenement,
after the housing structure that surrounds it. So I'm a
trainer coach here they just may see how to help people.
The Tenement was built on nineteen sixty two President just Oo.
(17:03):
This building was condemned, but the japan Engineering c and
test our building here. It lasts more than fifteen years.
They said that this place is not safe, but they're wrong.
This place is so much love. Where we come back,
(17:24):
it's time for a quick ta gala Clesson Cassidy. I
don't mean to put you on the spot, but how's
your tag? Um? Look, this is not like I still
(17:45):
hold this against my mom or my Lola, who you
know both were in the household. I was my whole
entire life raising me um. But they didn't teach me
to galog. That's okay. I know a few words, and
you I know a few phrases like I'm not cool
or you know massa rop and uh yepital and you
(18:07):
know I can. I can say a few things, but
not as much as I want to and I still
need to. You know, I still hold that against my mom.
It's their fault. It's completely on that. But look, it's
not a problem that the gout a lesson have got
here for you. Isn't something you would have learned in
college courses or Rosetta Stone. We're pretty much anywhere outside
(18:27):
of the Philippines among nineties era NBA fans. And I
can't even blame this on your mom or your lola,
because you had to be a basketball fan to really
know this. Now, when I bring up the greatest pick
and roll duos of the nineties era, who are the
first two players who come to mind? Quick? Can't you
(18:49):
watched your hometown Chicago Bulls beat them in the finals twice? Oh,
easy work? John Stockton and Karl Malone? Right? Perfect? And
do you remember how the great and be on NBC
announcer Marv Albert would call their plays together back then?
Stockton to Malone Bengo. Well, in Filipino, the version of
(19:11):
expanded Tagalog that serves as the Philippines national language, the
same exact sounds, that combination of phonetics they happen to
form the sentence Stockton to Malone, which means Stockton jump
and every time the mailman delivered on a Stockton assist
in those years, it was like Marv and millions of
(19:33):
Filipino NBA fans we're sharing an inside joke only we
could understand. Oh wow, I feel the same kind of
if you know, you know, connection with Filipino fans. I mean,
you know, while covering the NBA most of the time,
will be at the big events that draw spectators from
all over the world, like All Star Weekend, Summer League,
or the NBA Finals, and I'll be walking down like
(19:56):
an arena hallway or spot a few fans sitting together
in this hands and we'll just make eye contact. And
this is something you know that like I do just
on a daily basis, I will make sure if I
think you're a Filipino, I will say something Filipino. Often
I'm right, I'm like nine right, But specifically with NBA
(20:16):
fans who come up to me during games or you know,
at NBA events, I will absolutely say Filipino and then
we would embrace and I would say Filipino, Filipino, Filipedo.
And by the way, they don't point at you then
giveaways that it's not a head nod. No, it's it's
not a point. They kind of gesture their lips. Yes,
(20:41):
because Filipino's talk with their face. Yeah, exactly over there,
well there. So when you see them talking to someone
whoever is next to them and then making that like
kissing mark gesture at you, it's only to say you
see her, Cassidy. Yes, it's not creepy. Yeah, okay, creeped out.
And a lot of the time they'll stop me and
share a quick version of their own basketball love story
(21:03):
and then tell me how much it means to see
a fellow Filipino on screen during NBA games. I know
you hate it every time. I tell you how important
that is to so many people here to see you
represent us so well. I mean a lot of the time,
the country's basketball passion shines brightest when our love for
the game comes into contact with the oldest and best
(21:24):
pro league in the world. So to have you there,
it's incredibly, incredibly a proud moment, NonStop for all Filipinos everywhere.
We've also seen it up close when great players like
Lebron or Kde come through Manila during their offseason sneaker tours.
When Kevin Durant visited Manila, he was greeted by chanting
fans everywhere he went. It's a dream to look at
(21:49):
man in the sea and didn't have Enos players here
with them. Man can't beat there. So you know, I'm
sure you'll see a future NBA player walking around here
at some point. I mean, a chance to see a
Finals MVP in the flesh, maybe even get close enough
to ask for an autograph, for a selfie. It becomes
almost like a religious experience, and the players feel it too.
(22:11):
I mean, I remember any time Kobe Bryant would come
to the Philippines on a sneaker tour, the country would stop,
like everybody you knew would be at wherever it was.
It was rumored that Kolby would be. It was raining,
didn't matter, it was sun ten feet right over your head,
(22:33):
did it matter. You were only going to see a
glimpse of Kobe through the glass, didn't matter. There were
thousands of people there just waiting to see him. The
love definitely goes both ways, Nico. I remember back in
two thousand and eight, after the Boston Celtics be Kobe
and won their first championship since the Larry bird days,
(22:54):
the team celebrated by going to a Manny Pacil fight
in Las Vegas, and then all of a sudden, after
Manny knocked out some poor guy named David Diaz, there
was Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Rajon Rondo, Sam Cassell,
and Tony Allen partying in Manny's locker room, and you
couldn't tell who was more starstruck to meet the other.
(23:15):
I'm not sure Cage even knew, but before they went
in there, Manny had been calling him his favorite player
for years. Huge Man, huge Man. Just just what it is, Man,
I'm a huge pac Man fans. While we're here, you
know that this guy has never asked for the picture
for anyone except you. He is your number one, the
(23:37):
Philippines greatest living champion at the time when he could
almost literally do no wrong in the eyes of fellopen noise,
engaging in some adorable cross cultural bromance with future NBA
Hall of famers, with some of the best basketball players
on the planet looking up to our national sporting hero.
For Filipinos watching the scene unfold, it was like Manny
(24:00):
said a dream come true. Later on Manny's love for
KG and the Celtics wound up playing a factor in
one of the most controversial fights they June twenty twelve,
lost to Timothy Bradley Junior that nobody watching the fight
seemed to see Manny losing. Rumors swirled after the bout
that Manny had angered the ringside judges by postponing his
(24:23):
ring walk while he watched the Celtics play the Miami
Heat in an Eastern Conference Finals game. I'm still I'm
still sour about that loss. By the way, I still
demand a recount same. I remember being so mad. I
think I was at a party that night watching on
my phone and everyone was like, what is wrong with you?
Like this is just an atrocity. But I digress. Overall,
(24:47):
the way that Manny always wore his love for basketball
and the NBA on his sleeve, launching his two handed
catapult of a jump shot in pickup games, his brief
and confusing foray into owning Code Chain and playing for
his own PBA team, starting his own regional pro league
to provide opportunities for the surplus of Filipino basketball players
(25:09):
who aren't quite PBA caliber. It seems like another perfect
example of how basketball touches just every Filipino in the world.
In some way you see basketball in the NBA's influence
on Manny's life. But really you see it wherever you
look in the Philippines, and the closer you look, the
more you see the sports imprint all around you. They're
(25:31):
the painted portraits of NBA legends on the sides of
jeepneys that you mentioned earlier, often with images of the
driver's wife and children. On the hood. There are the
court size murals of Lebron and Kobe that the artists
and activists of the Tenement community hand painted onto their
home court. Coach Eddie Barbuena told us about the creation
(25:52):
of the famous Kobe mural on the Tenement court, the
mural of Kobe, Bryant and gig it's very tachi. When
that time happens, all the people gather all around the world. Actually,
the idea of putting the mural here in the famous
(26:12):
basketball for Tenement is the idea came from the Tenement
Virtual Artists. We have our Tenement Virtual artist here and
with cooperation and coordination with the Tahan and Association lead
by our president Jennifer karpen So, the plan was so
fast they do the mural for respect and love to
(26:38):
the father and daughter Kobe and Gigi for three days.
They do it that for three days continuously, without a sleep.
There are the times you'll catch a glimpse of a
tanker truck passing by and realize as its speeds out
of sight that it had a gigantic Michael Jordan Jumpman
logo painted on the back. One of the most intimate
(27:01):
examples of how deep the nation's love the NBA runs
comes from the number of Filipino parents who choose to
give their children NBA inspired names. There's no way to
tell exactly how many of the countries Kevin's or Allan's
were named after Garnette or Durant or Iverson, but I
(27:23):
promise you if we could interview each and every one
of them, you wouldn't believe how many of them would
say they're named after an NBA Grede. Basically, if a
newborn boy in the Philippines isn't named after a saint,
there's a good chance he'll be named after the next
holiest figure. An NBA legend. The sidestep moved by Scottie Thompson,
(27:47):
Steve Nash Enriquez gets it to go because he did
have a depressive rookie year. He has a right spots
and now he's just looking to build on him. In
case you can't quite believe your ears, I'll slow it
down for you. That was Scotty Thompson, reigning MVP of
the PB eight, whose dad named him Scottie after Scottie Pippin.
Then a couple of college players whose namesakes could not
(28:10):
be any clearer, National University point guard Steve Nash Enriquez.
By the way, Steve Nash and Riquez also have a
massive ponytail, and he's like five foot eight on his
best day, which makes him the best player to cover.
I love him, man. I will say this. Though Irvin
(28:32):
Magic Ramos was my leading candidates to name my son,
my wife would have none of it. We eventually named
him Tyler and depending on how Tyler Hero's career goes.
Oh is where al stand with the story Tyler Hero
becomes an MVP one day, I'll say my son was
named after him, and then you just got it. But
(28:52):
you have to add Hero with the double R as
the middle name. You know that, right, I don't mind it.
Tyler Hero Ramos. I don't mind it into it. Actually,
it's amazing. All right. I think that's our cue to
take a quick break. But when we come back, we're
traveling back to nineteen ninety eight. Jaw alone is coupled.
(29:17):
They shot out of it and stealing up Chicago seventeen seconds,
seventeen seconds from Game seven Orcal Championship number six. Jordan
open Chicago with the lane. Cassidy, you're from Chicago. I'm
guessing you recognize that sound. Recognize nineteen ninety eight, Salt
(29:43):
Lake City. You talk, Michael Jordan, the shot, get off me, Brian,
even though people called you Byron, your name is Brian
Russell Stockton. Why don't you tom alone yourself off this court?
MJ and the poll second three p. Twenty thousand, cry
jazz fans. I don't just recognize that sound. I don't
(30:04):
just appreciate that sound. I am that sound. I cherish
that sound. All right, Okay, Chicna go easy easy. We
all saw the push off, Yes, we all watched it.
Do you remember where you watched MJ? Push off? Brian Russell,
I didn't see any push off. I don't know what
you're talking about, but I was in eighth grade around
(30:24):
then the time of the shot and only the shot.
I was home in my living room watching from the couch,
like we did every single Bowls playoff game back then,
and my mom was screaming her absolute head off, like
shrieking every time every time a shot went up, and
(30:44):
I could hear her sometimes when I'd be taking the
dog out a walk two blocks down, just screaming Scotty.
She didn't even scream for Luke Longley, what are you doing,
b J? I had Mom calmed down, You're gonna blood pressure, Mom,
(31:05):
blood pressure. But that was that was our household. I mean,
to grow up in the nineties during that era of
the NBA, I mean exactly why I am who I
am and how I ended up where I ended up.
I feel like you're describing my mother with that exact
(31:25):
same tone and volume. Because the Philippines was thirteen hours
ahead of Eastern Standard time during that part of the year,
so for me, it was Monday morning and it would
have been about maybe nine, almost ten years old. In
elementary school. I was at the sweet spot of just
(31:46):
really beginning to understand basketball and blossoming as a fan.
Because of Jordan and the Three Peats, everybody I knew
had Bulls Merch and only Bulls Merch for some reason,
like everyone had relatives in Chicago. Back then, it wasn't
so easy to watch NBA games on TV. There weren't
that many options for cable, and most of the games
(32:07):
that we did see were incredibly delayed. The stories folks
tell about the NBA's dark ages in the seventies when
finals games weren't aired on live TV and came on
sometime in the middle of the night, after the news
or after the late night talk shows. We were still
living in that world at some point in the nineties.
(32:27):
But those limitations forces to get creative, and I remember
trying to follow note I say followed not watch that
game six between Chicago and Utah, and it became one
of the great basketball experiences of my life. So at school,
much like many many other schools in the Philippines, we
had what were called recess runners. So during the school day,
(32:49):
we had a recess period and one of the kids,
the runner, he'd sprint up to the pay phone to
call his cousin, his friend, or whoever it was they
knew that was wealthy enough or lived far away from
Manila enough sneak enough to have one of those bootlegs
satellites that provided a hazy feed of NBA games. The
runner would call his guy, ask for the score, what
(33:12):
was happening in the game, how many technicals did Dennis
Rodman have? What color his hair is? All that stuff?
And he'd come running one hundred meters back into the
canteen and yell into the entire student lounge where everybody
would be their waiting. That morning of game six, the
runner came back. He kind of messed up the story
(33:34):
of that last play. It's like a classic literal game
of telephone because he came back sweat all over him, right,
he's gasping for breath, and he said Jordan pushed off.
He hit the game winner. Jordan pushed Russell the bulls win.
That may have been the last shot Michael Jordan will
ever take in the NBA. What's Joan's left hand here
(33:58):
as he gives Russell the push. Referee can't see that.
That's the image we had in our minds, in our
minds as ten year olds. Michael Jordan assaulted Bryan Russell,
just physically hurt him. Because the guy on the phone
told a recess runner that Jordan pushed Russell, and it
(34:20):
was our only way of knowing what happened in the moment.
And it stayed like that in my mind for about
a month and a half before someone finally lent a
VHS recording of the game from the States. It was
a copy of a copy of a copy. And then
I saw that, yes, MJ initiated some contact on that
(34:41):
famous play, but it was more like a love tap
than the crazy shove that we had imagined in our mind.
It was physical assault. You're telling me this all started.
All this talk about a push off started from a
bad game of telephone at your school. That's how this
push off on sense got started. Jay, I'm sorry, City
(35:03):
of Chicago. I'm sorry it was all because of one guy.
Have won their sixth NBA championship and it's their second
three people. Looking back on it, though, I'm happy I
lived through those days before streaming and cable made it
so easy to follow the NBA games. I'm proud that
(35:26):
I came of age during a time when we would
do literally anything to get a scrap of information about
our favorite teams and players, cook up wild schemes just
to hear game updates. Where there's a will, there's a way,
And when it comes to the Filipinos craving for NBA basketball,
there's an entire world's worth of willpower coming out of
this small island nation. We asked Donna as if there
(35:50):
were any misconceptions about Pinoy basketball culture that she'd like
to clear up. Maybe people just aren't aware. Maybe they've
seen photos or videos of these like makeshift courts. You know,
you know, all of that is absolutely true. You can
literally find like a makeshift in every neighborhood. But it's
just that it's not a passing hobby for a lot
of Filipino fans. It's actually what we're discovering and constantly
(36:14):
astounded by this is that Filipino fans are actually quite
sophisticated and knowledgeable about NBA basketball. So if you go
up to somebody who's like playing barefoot or in flip blop,
they actually know the nuances of the game, they know
the players, they know the history quite well. So that
might be a little bit surprising to people just how
again sophisticated and knowledgeable Filipino fans are. So much has
(36:35):
changed over the last ten twenty years. I'm gonna kind
of date myself here by talking about a little bit
about this, but that's really kind of dictated by the
growing demand for for NBA content. So I guess if
you go back, like maybe the eighties or nineties, you
really only watch games on a laid basis, you know,
trying to find ways to watch a game. There used
(36:56):
to be these two American military basis just north of Manila,
and they had access to the Far East Network, which
is guests the Armed Forces Network in the US, So
if you live close enough, you could pick up the
signal and be able to watch like American television, including
NBA games. And now, of course NBA fans in the
Philippines can file the league and watch basketball with every
(37:19):
waking hour of their days thanks to International League Pass,
domestic and international media coverage of the league, and cable
channels that run live NBA games in the morning and
replays at night. But they don't take that access for granted, Nope.
Filipinos are now among the most engaged NBA fans in
the world, and the league has taken notice. But I
(37:42):
think for the first real change really came about with
you know, obviously the advent of satellite technology and cable TV.
You know, it's more people you know, got PTV subscriptions.
We went from getting just a few delayed games per
week and now you have you know, live games daily.
So twenty ten we even launched a twenty four to
seven NBA channel, which we still have today and we
(38:05):
air now about roughly eighteen games on TV per week.
The game is definitely evolved. A lot of it, I
think is it just exposure, not just the NBA basketball,
but like you know, international basketball, there's FIBA, you know,
other professional leagues like the Year League that your Panby
League on Australian NBA. So if you watch like a
PBA or a UAP game now you'll see that influence
(38:27):
in their self play, you know. I think again the
game has changed a little bit and we're now playing
a little bit more above the rim, but like there's
still a lot of play below the rim, so you
can see a lot of that creativity and just trying
to get to the basket and trying to make those shots.
You should see the Donner s Ai cross. Nobody has
seen it at this point. I think we've done about
(38:51):
all we can to illustrate just how widespread the Philippines
basketball obsession is, and how the country's love of the
game runs as deep as it can get. I imagine
that fifty four thousand people watching a basketball game, I
mean the regular US NBA arena. It's like, you know,
twenty twenty five, twenty three, You know, this is fifty
(39:12):
three thousand people. It's a love affair. It's a love
affair with the NBA. One part still feels like it's missing.
Note we adore basketball, sure, but why what part of
our history turned the Philippines into a nation of hoop
heads rather than a country full of soccer or cricket
or baseball fans. Listen to episode two of Hoops Paradise,
(39:35):
The Philippines Love of the Game to find out. Available
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
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