Like most of the other teams, Converge has also made the most of the unlimited height for reinforcements in the PBA Season 50 Commissioner’s Cup.
The FiberXers have tapped the services of center Kylor Kelley for the midseason joust, further beefing up an already loaded frontline, which recently added Calvin Abueva following a shock trade with Titan Ultra.
Listed at 7-feet, the Logan, Utah-native has been an NBA G League campaigner since 2021, with the South Bay Lakers being his most recent stop.
He did play in the NBA last season, albeit in brief stints with two different teams, first with the Dallas Mavericks and then with the New Orleans Pelicans.
The 28-year-old center out of Oregon State also has experience in playing outside of the US, having done tours in England, Denmark, Canada, and Italy.
Now, he’s bound for his first stint in Asia through Converge, a team that’s even hungrier to reach the semifinals for the first time in franchise history after falling just short of breaking through in the Season 50 Philippine Cup.
Bringing with them the lessons from that quarterfinal series versus the twice-to-win Ginebra, Coach Delta Pineda & Co. are hoping to make some noise once more in the upcoming conference with the addition of ‘The Beast.’
The first-year PBA head coach will lean on a solid mix of youth and experience, as he pairs up Abueva with the twin-tower combo of Justin Arana and Justin Baltazar, as well as young star guard Juan Gomez de Liano.
They’re hoping that everything will work well with the arrival of Kelley, who was part of the 2024 G League All-Defensive Team.
Kelley is now the second 7-foot import confirmed to play in the Commissioner’s Cup next to the 7-foot-1 Mubashar Ali, who’s set to reinforce Terrafirma.
Some foreign players standing at least 6-foot-9 have been brought in, with Rain or Shine signing Jaylen Johnson, a former teammate of Kevin Quiambao in the Goyang Sono Skygunners of the Korean Basketball League.
Magnolia picked up 6-foot-10 power forward Terrell Brown-Soares, as new head coach LA Tenorio opted to bring in a new face instead of an old one.
Still, aside from size, there are others who have chosen to go with imports that are already familiar with the PBA, with Blackwater calling in Daniel Ochefu.
Listed at 6-foot-11, Ochefu was tapped by the Elasto Painters for the 2022-23 Commissioner’s Cup. However, the team let him go even before the tourney began, as he didn’t fit the system of Yeng Guiao, who had just returned to the franchise at the time.
Meralco, on the other hand, is going with proven chemistry as it’s sticking with the hulking Ismail Romero, the team’s import in the 2025-26 EASL season.
Teams that already flew in their respective imports earlier include NLEX with Cady Lalanne, Phoenix with James Dickey, and Ginebra with Justin Brownlee, who stands as the smallest in this latest batch of imports at 6-foot-4.
Lalanne, a sub-zone league champion in the FIBA West Asia Super League, showed glimpses of what he can bring to the Road Warriors after suiting up for what came to be the Bolts’ final EASL game along with Romero and Brownlee.
Four teams — namely San Miguel Beer, TNT, Titan Ultra, and guest team Macau Black Bears — have yet to confirm their imports for the meet.
