Tab Baldwin: program first before head coaching search for Gilas

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

Gilas Pilipinas program director coach Tab Baldwin finally answered why he hasn’t appointed any full-time head coach for the squad he built heading into the FIBA World Cup 2023.

During the Tiebreaker Vodcasts’ Coaches Unfiltered presented by SMART, coach Baldwin emphasized that they don’t need a head coach right now and the best thing to do is for them to develop into the best program possible.

“I think the easier thing to do is just not hire a coach right now, and let our program evolve and develop what we believe is going to be a very strong national team,” he said in the podcast.

In their recent outing for the first qualifying game against Indonesia, Baldwin and the Gilas committee decided to put Mark Dickel as interim head coach.

Dickel, Talk N Text’s active consultant who also worked for Baldwin years ago during their international stints, called the shots for Gilas and led the young group to a 100-70 demolition job against the Indonesians.

Although Baldwin recognized Dickel’s work with Gilas, Baldwin said that he still won’t appoint Dickel for the job because he wants his hand-picked players in the roster he created for 2023 to individually work in their role within the system they will be deploying.

“So, let us do the job of developing the program. Let us use our expertise of the local coaches, myself being a local coach now after being here for five years, with a lot of international experience working with the other established local coaches, who, also some of them, have international experience; and build the players that we know and understand into a pool of players that we can,” coach Baldwin said.

Currently, the Gilas program is under the expertise of program director coach Baldwin, assisted by coaches Alex Compton, Topex Robinson, Sandy Arespacochaga, and Dickel.