The line up is a mix of veterans and cadets with 11 of the 12 Gilas players who joined the 2017 FIBA Asia Cup making it to the list, which may help the team chemistry having played which each other in a FIBA tourament already. Only 2017 PBA Rookie Draft first pick Christian Standhardinger was omitted in the list mainly because of his commitment to his club team in the ASEAN Basketball League, which is in the country as well to have some tune up matches against some PBA teams.
Leading the team are 4 time PBA Most Valuable Player June Mar Fajardo and 2 time Asia's Best Point Guard Jayson Castro. The 23 man pool is as follows (pic is from the same post in the FIBA website) :
Notable names is the list includes Mac Belo and Russell Escoto who are both coming from injuries, Kevin Alas who was part of the cadets team before and was named as reserve in Gilas 2.0 and Kiefer Ravena - the only non-PBA player in the roster technically since he was just drafted last week. Andray Blatche, who was sent home by his team in the CBA due to injury will be our naturalized player. I do hope that he has recuperated from his injury and is in good shape.
It is just comforting to see a pool of familiar names with a mix of youth and veterans. Coming from limbo where Filipino fans do not know who will play and will they be allowed to play, at least now, it is clear - we have a team that will compete. Only having three weeks to prepare and Andray Blatche coming in on November 12, I hope this will be enough for us to get the 2 wins in this playing window.
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