You can pull it off being smaller in the NBA... not an ALL SMALL team, but one small player is fine, look at Iverson... All you need to do his practice, you know practice... not the game... practice.
Admittedly we are not as athletically gifted as other races and being short gives us nothing. The problem is that a Filipino cannot really break into the NBA because by then we would be playing as guards, and in the back court communication is essential. Even if most Filipinos speak fluent English something will be lost in translation. A player like Yao Ming is easier assimilated because his role as center makes him more of a scoring option rather than a floor general.