Twelve city-based club teams will be among the first to join when it kicks off with a pre-season tournament on Jan. 14 at the Ynares Sports Center in Pasig City.
Members of the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League are among the teams wishing to be part of the the first-ever attempt to form a national 3×3 basketball league in the country.
“Ito na ang unang pagkakataon ng 3×3 tournament (at the national level) sa Pilipinas, although 3×3 leagues are already happening around the world,” said tournament commissioner Eric Altamirano during a meeting of team owners recently at the Bar One restaurant of the Holiday Inn-Ortigas Center.
The tournament is part of the process of selecting talented players who can be part of the national men’s 3×3 team.
The chosen players, once the process is completed this year, will join Kobe Paras, who has joined the world 3×3 events twice.
Paras is the first official member of the national squad and a talent search will now be focused on three new members of the team, who will join him.
Among the club teams which have showed up are the Bataan Risers through their owner Borgy Hermida. San Juan through Jeremy Go was there, along with Bulacan (Britt Reroma), Manila Star (Roman Ang) and the Marikina Shoelanders (Elvis Tolentino).
There’s Quezon City Zarks (Christian Roxas), Taguig (MC Abolucion), Valenzuela Classics (Voltaire Oro), Cebu Hotshots (John Roa) and Bacoor Strikers (Dennis Abella).
Davao Occidental has shown interest, along with another team from Luzon.
The Philippines is currently making efforts to improve its world ranking of no. 43 and this can improve if players and tournaments on 3×3 will be registered with FIBA.
And if the Philippines makes it to the Top 8, it can join the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
After the pre-season tournament, six legs will be held in the provinces before the national finals commence this April.
