By REYNALD MAGALLON
The coaching staff of Gilas Pilipinas will be juggling their time to train two different compositions of the national team for the upcoming tournaments in the August window of the FIBA World Cup Asian qualifiers and 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
With most of the members of the original Gilas team, particularly the overseas players, not available for the Asiad, Gilas head coach Tim Cone has no other choice but to tap PBA talents to fill in the missing roles
“We’re gonna have pretty much two separate teams, one for the window and one for the Asian games. I guess we’ll release that at some point but that’s pretty much the plan,” said Gilas head coach Tim Cone.
“None of the Japan and Korean players can play in the Asian Games so we just decided that we will field an all-PBA contingent for the Asian Games along with Justin,” he added.
Cone, however, intends to focus first on the preparation of Gilas as they begin training for the games against Jordan and Iran on Monday, Aug. 17.
The Asiad team will also start their practice at some point with Cone assigning some of his deputies to facilitate the training while Cone is with the Gilas team that will play in the window.
“We’re gonna practice separately at this point,” said Cone.
“We have plans for me to handle the window until we get it done and then transfer to the Asiad team. In the meantime, Richard (del Rosario), Josh (Reyes) and Jong (Uichico) will handle the Asian Games,” Cone explained.
Cone said some of the PBA stars that will see action in the FIBA window can still be called up for the Asiad team.
Some of the league’s biggest stars have already been named to the pool like Robert Bolick of NLEX, Sedrick Barefield of Blackwater, Zav Lucero of Magnolia, Adrian Nocum and Caelan Tiongson of Rain or Shine and Jason Perkins of Phoenix.
Also part of the 30 names the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas submitted are San Miguel’s Jerrick Ahanmisi and Don Trollano, Converge’s Justin Arana, Meralco’s Brandon Bates and TNT’s Jordan Heading and Brandon Ganuelas-Rosser.
PBA players originally part of Gilas are June Mar Fajardo, Scottie Thompson, CJ Perez, RJ Abarrientos, Troy Rosario, Juan Gomez de Liaño, Justine Baltazar and Chris Newsome.
