Narvasa earns nod of board

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The Philippine Basketball Association’s board of governors on Thursday afternoon named its new game commissioner who will take over from Chito Salud starting next season.
Chito Narvasa, a banker by profession and a basketball nut all his life, was appointed to the post, besting a total of close to 20 other bets which the board considered for the position, which would go down as a first of its kind in the annals of the league.
Narvasa was elated at his appointment, considering that he has been out of the game for close to two decades now and confessing to only see the PBA games “occasionally in the past few years.”
The amiable Narvasa, a son of the late Chief Justice Andres Narvasa, played high school and collegiate ball for Ateneo while the respectable learning institution was still in the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the 1970s.
Though he showed that he can play, Chito never got to make playing basketball a career, though he would later go on to coach in the PBA with defunct Shell and later on Purefoods from 1995 to 1998.
He never won a championship as a coach but was the unanimous choice of his peers to head the Basketball Coaches Association of the Philippines (BCAP), a post he still holds until this time.
“First of all, I am very thankful to the board members and the team owners for the trust they showed in choosing me,” Narvasa told Arab News in a phone interview.
“I thank them for thinking that I can do something good for the league,” he went on.
Narvasa said that he will take a leave from a multinational bank where he is director to devote all his time in running the games of the PBA, and, if things don’t work for him, he said, he will always come back to banking.
“You know the tenure of the commissioner is year-to-year,” Narvasa said. “If they feel that I did a good job (the previous season) and renews me (for the following year), then I will continue serving as commissioner.”
The choice of Narvasa ended months of search and speculation as to who will take over from Salud, who said that he was stepping down at the end of this season before accepting a new post as president and CEO of the league.
And that has made Narvasa’s position entirely different from the one that Chito Salud and seven others before him held, when only one man – through the help of his staff, of course – ran everything that concerned the league, from marketing, media relations, game-day chores and the game itself, etc.
At least, Narvasa will be able to concentrate on something that has ailed the league for quite sometime now: officiating.

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Officiating has soured during the term of Salud, no offense to the man.
Glaring mistakes in calls made and in non-calls have been the fare the past conferences and Salud, no matter how hard he tried, couldn’t seem to get this one thing right for the PBA.
Of course, teams, more so the losing ones, tend to say a lot about officiating after games, or after playoff series where they felt they got the raw end of the deal.
But having covered this beat for so many years now, I can share the sentiment of most of them. This corner may disagree on the gripes of some, but can definitely agree on most.
Salud has been very strict in running officiating in the PBA. He has suspended erring referees for long terms and took away their pay to be able to drive a point. That has been his “tough love” practice on his officials ever since he took office.
Sadly, it hasn’t worked.
Referees, just like the normal office employee, can be suspended for so many times – without pay of course – and will still not get it if that employee is not up to the task to begin with.
I am not saying that all of the PBA referees that we have are incapable of doing their jobs, but there are a lot of them out there who are – at least in the PBA level.
And Narvasa will find this out sooner than later, and boy, does he have a tough season ahead of him.

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Being a referee is such a thankless job. One cannot satisfy everyone no matter how high his work on a certain game is rated.
But, as they say, some people really have to do it, otherwise, basketball games or any other sport for that matter, will be chaotic to say the least, because the honesty system will not work either.
The NBA, the world’s premier basketball league, also has its share of mistakes committed by the officials. No one is perfect in this world, after all, but it will not hurt anyone who strives to be perfect.
That’s what’s ailing the PBA, in this corner’s opinion, as mistakes are committed in bunches, some of them very simple that the normal spectator can spot right away.
Take the case of the traveling violation that officials did not call on Sam Daghles during Talk ‘N Text’s debut in the Governors’ Cup a couple of days back, a non-call that resulted in a free throw by Larry Fonacier that helped seal the victory by the Tropang Texters.
That play had everyone in the coliseum raising their arms because Daghles did not travel once, but twice, in order to break out of a double team and pass the ball to Fonacier.
From what I heard, one of the referees there, the one who was right in front of it all when it happened, was again suspended for an unspecified period.
But where will he correct the mistake he made? If he goes to the same training method, the same viewing conferences for evaluation, the same technical skill briefing, then his suspension would, again, amount to nothing.
The PBA, in my opinion, needs outside help, one that will upgrade the skills of the referees to make them all worthy, make them believable and make all of them respectable and authoritative on the court.
Chito Narvasa could be the man, or he could be the instrument into finding that man.
Let’s wait.