Basketball

is the most popular sport in the Philippines, played on both the amateur and professional levels.

Basketball is one of the main influences of the Americans on the Filipinos.

Basketball is widely considered as the most popular sport in the Philippines. Prior to the 1900s basketball was virtually an unknown sport in the Philippines. Due to the massive influence Spain brought during their 300-year colonization of the islands, Filipinos are more into cockfighting and other forms of social gambling.There are also indigenous Filipino martial arts such as the Arnis de Mano. Cockfighting, gambling and Arnis de Mano

dominated the Philippine sports landscape.

However, all of that would change in the 1900s. The entry of the Americans into the Philippine archipelago marked the birth of

basketball in the Philippines. Filipinos easily embraced basketball due to its competitive and action-packed nature.

Today, basketball still remains as the number one sport in the Philippines. Despite competition from emerging sports such as the rejuvenated badminton and the football-powered Azkals, the sport of basketball will forever remain etched in the hearts and minds of the sports-loving Filipino people.

It does make dunking a pretty rare thing, and even when you see dunks they’re not much like the stuff you see LeBron (James) pull off. But at the same time, the Philippine game has a lot of flash to it. That’s one of the biggest criticisms on the international scene of the game there ? that they’re too flashy.

Sometimes they’re called too American,which is a bit misleading, because the style they’ve developed is not a lot like American basketball, though it does share some of that one-on-one flavour. People like to see a guy get beat off the dribble, or beat in the air. They like that confrontation of one-on-one; it’s something that fans and players respect in the game and cherish.

The lack of height, and the relative rareness of dunks, makes the circus lay-up their version of the dunk, or the highest expression of artistry for a slasher or guard. You get used to seeing moves that look kind of ridiculous. The best guys have an incredible touch on the ball. The spins they can pull off, the one-handed shots. They can shoot on their way down, they can shoot off the wrong foot. As far as finishing

difficult shots at the rim, they show incredible skill. [...]