WHILE welcoming the pro league decision giving coach Yeng Guiao the green light to start scouting for a 7-foot player who could be tapped to reinforce the national team as a naturalized player, the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas yesterday said "naturalizing a player is a privilege that should not be trifled with."

"It’s a process we are pushing because we feel it is one way to help the RP Team be more competitive," SBP Executive Director Noli Eala said, "but there is a need to be circumspect in choosing the player" to be naturalized.

At the same time, Eala said the SBP will extend a helping hand to RP team officials to help them determine the best player possible who could be naturalized, a process that is already widely-accepted in various countries.

"We already have several names sent to us by our scouts and we will forward these names to RP team officials," Eala said, adding the naturalization process will have to go administrative, judicial and legislative modes.

Last Wednesday, the PBA, according to new chairman Joaqui Trillo, gave Guiao the go signal to scout for a player who could be naturalized and give the still-to-be-formed national team a fighting chance in next year’s FIBA-Asia qualifying tournament for the 2010 World Championship.

"We’re fully behind coach Yeng in this endeavor. If he wants that, we’ll give it to him," Trillo said.

Guiao welcomed the PBA decision, saying the team he intends to form for the FIBA-Asia qualifier, where three slots in the world meet will be staked, must have a seven-footer who can "match up with the region’s seven-footers."

The Philippines has already used naturalized players in the past, winning the Asian cage title in 1986 through the help of center Dennis Still and do-it-all Jeff Moore. Even Russia used a naturalized player, John Robert Holden, an African-American guard from Pittsburgh, in the Beijing Olympics and the European Championship.

"It’s a critical decision," Eala said. "We have to make sure we get the right player."

One of the things that have to be addressed, according to Eala, is the issue of funding, admitting a "good (financial) package" would come in handy to lure good players.