SINGAPORE (SEABA Championship 2017) - Two years ago in the Southeast Asian Games 2015, Singapore bagged their first ever bronze medal, and stalwart Wong Weilong is hoping they can do even better this year.

Wong is fresh from helping Singapore's only professional ball club, the Singapore Slingers, reach the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) Finals for the second straight season. They lost in four games to eventual champions Hong Kong Eastern Long Lions, but it's clear that Wong and his teammates have come a very long way from being perennial doormats in Southeast Asia. Of course, their promising performance in the 2016-2017 ABL season has buoyed many local fans' expectations for their heroes to pose a legitimate challenge in the coming SEABA Championship 2017 in Manila.

Wong, who started his career on the national team in 2009, has long been considered one of Singapore's all-time greats, but he knows that individual accolades pale in comparison to team hardware. He will be the first to admit they are considerable underdogs in the coming SEABA tourney, what with the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia all expecting to be reinforced by naturalized players, but that has not hampered the 28-year-old guard's confidence that his squad is ready to, once again, turn a lot of heads.

This much he expressed in a recent interview with FIBA.com.

Some have said that you are the top local player in Singapore. What can you say about this?
Everyone knows Basketball is a team sport. Good ball rotation is essential in helping a player to create more open shots and thereby increasing the scoring chances. I've been fortunate to be presented with many such opportunities. Coach Neo Ben Siang has passed on this piece of knowledge to all of us, and it has proved to help us execute better game plays.

The Singapore Slingers just finished second place for the second season in a row in the ABL. How does this make you feel?
I think there's always something to be improved on. For the future, we need to work on both individual and team defense to shut down our opponents from scoring so easily. Nonetheless, I am proud of what the team has achieved. We will continue fighting and do our best in the future.

Some members of the national team play for the Slingers. How helpful has this been for you and the others?
The ABL has provided local players with a platform to compete on an international level. It allows exchange of skills and knowledge amongst players from different places in the world. Joining the Slingers also allowed me and my teammates to learn from our imports. Through trainings and games played together as a team, everyone is able to pick up different learning points along the way, enabling us to make adjustments to our skills so as to improve both as individuals and as a team. Six years ago, if we weren't given a chance to play in the ABL, we would not have had the chance to learn from people who are better than us.

What can you say about the new competition system of FIBA, especially the home and away format?
It is going to be exciting. We get to travel and see the world! More importantly, our family members get to see us play and support us on our home ground!

Is the future of Singapore basketball bright, and can the team raise their level even more in the next few years?
Yes definitely! There is a lot of untapped potential in the young players who are eager to learn and take part in international games and show what Singapore Basketball can achieve in the near future. Our current batch of players are experienced, and we can impart our knowledge to the younger players. I believe that this can help the young players acquire better skills at a younger age than my generation did.

What would be the national team's main target or goal this year and what are your chances to achieve this?
We want to do our best in our upcoming international competition such as SEABA and SEA Games 2017. It would be exciting to watch how the team has grown and see how much we can achieve after so many years of playing together.

FIBA