A much complete and fully strengthened Gilas Pilipinas will be assured as all the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) teams have agreed to release Gilas pool members in their respective line-ups and lend them to the national team for upcoming FIBA Asia Cup this August in Lebanon on August 8-20.
With this, Gilas Pilipinas head coach Chot Reyes can fully handle and shuffle all the cards in his deck, meaning, he can already have the 24 names he mentioned for the national team.
The players represented the country on the recent SEABA like June Mar Fajardo, Japeth Aguilar, Raymond Almazan, Allein Maliksi, Troy Rosario, Calvin Abueva, Jayson Castro, Terrence Romeo, Jio Jalalon, Matthew Wright and RR Pogoy will now be officially available for the pool.
Also available are the national team veteran and Gilas returnee Gabe Norwood, together with young talented PBA players named Kevin Alas, Baser Amer, Mac Belo, Kevin Ferrer, Chris Tolomia and Carl Bryan Cruz.
Naturalized player Andray Blatche, Fil-German Christian Standhardinger, Bobby Ray Parks, Kiefer Ravena, and Kobe Paras are also fit for the 24-man pool.
According to the PBA and Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) agreement, Gilas cadets/PBA rookies will be released 15 days before the tournament while a longer 30 days before for the PBA veterans.
Meanwhile, PBA Commissioner Chito Narvasa vowed to find a way to avoid the conflict between PBA Governor’s Cup and FIBA Asia Cup.
“It always affects the PBA whenever there is a change in (FIBA) schedule. We’ll discuss it with (SBP president) Al Panlilio and coach Chot Reyes,” Narvasa said.
Moreover, it can be remembered that PBA already set a huge adjustment in its 2017-2018 season just to prepare for the other tournament, which is FIBA Asia world qualifiers. | Tretch Melarpes – PTV
