The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Gilas Pilipinas coach Chot Reyes announced the PBA players who are included in the training pool for the Philippine men’s basketball team for the coming Southeast Asian Games.
Selected to the pool are six-time Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo of San Miguel Beer, Poy Erram and Kib Montalbo of TNT, Japeth Aguilar of Ginebra, Isaac Go of Terrafirma, Troy Rosario of TNT, Roger Pogoy of TNT, Matthew Wright of Phoenix, Kevin Alas of NLEX, Robert Bolick of NorthPort, and Mo Tautuaa of San Miguel Beer, who will play as the team’s naturalized player.
They will join the young Gilas players in the pool led by Japan B. League standouts Dwight Ramos and Thirdy Ravena, William Navarro, and youth players Caelum Harris and LeBron Lopez.
Mikey Williams of TNT, front-runner for the PBA Rookie of the Year award, is not on the list.
Reyes explained: “We can only bring one naturalized player,” Reyes said. “We felt we needed size because we have reports of the other countries having big naturalized players, so we thought it would be best for us to tap Mo Tautuaa instead.”
The SEA Games and the Asian Games men’s basketball tournament are not FIBA-sanctioned tournaments, which will give Williams and players like Stanley Pringle and Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser the opportunity to play, but because the team needed big men, Reyes opted for size rather than talent.
With Tautuaa coming in as the naturalized player, a role which he played when he represented the Philippines in the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship, Angelo Kouame, the team’s naturalized player during the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers, will also not see action in the Vietnam Games.
The Philippines has won the gold medal in the SEA Games since 1991.
“It’s a 16-man pool,” added Reyes. “We plan to bring in all 16 to Vietnam if it’s possible. For now, we can’t name our final 12 yet. I had a long meeting with the coaching staff and we felt this is the best line up that could help us win the gold.”
Harris, a 16-year-old, 6-foot-7 Fil-Am, is the youngest player in the pool.
Reyes said, “We wanted to have a lot more young players in the pool except that the SEA Games is going to overlap with the UAAP schedule, so that strikes out a lot of collegiate players that are in our roster, players like Angelo Kouame, Justin Baltazar, Carl Tamayo, Dave Ildefonso and all the guys in the list with us.”
“That’s why we’re very fortunate that the PBA allowed the players and we were able to put up a competitive line up. The key now is how quickly we can come together for practice to prepare,” Reyes said.